Unisex name

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Evelyn Waugh and his first wife Evelyn Gardner had the same given name.

A unisex name (also known as an epicene name, a gender-neutral name or an androgynous name) is a given name that is not gender-specific. Unisex names are common in the English-speaking world, especially in the United States. By contrast, some countries have laws preventing unisex names, requiring parents to give their children sex-specific names.^[1] In other countries or cultures, social norms oppose such names and transgressions may result in discrimination, ridicule, and psychological abuse.^[2]

Names may have different gender connotations from country to country or language to language. For example, the Italian male name Andrea (derived from Greek Andreas) is understood as a female name in many languages, such as English, German, Hungarian, Czech, and Spanish.

Parents may name their child in honor of a person of another sex, which – if done widely – can result in the name becoming unisex. For example, Christians, particularly Catholics, may give a child a second/middle name of the opposite sex, e.g. name a son Marie or Maria in honor of the Virgin Mary or formerly Anne for Saint Anne; or name a daughter José in honor of Saint Joseph or Jean in honor of John the Baptist.

In the United States, one popular names website considers a name unisex if Census Bureau and Social Security Administration data shows a name is assigned to a particular gender less than 95 percent of the time.^[3]

Some masculine and feminine names are homophones, pronounced the same for both sexes but spelled differently. These names are not strictly unisex names.