Unisex Names for Boys

More popular than the Jalen spelling. Like other names with many variants, when you count up all the alternatives, the name is much more popular than it first appears.

Attractive North Carolina place-name and surname of explorer Sir Walter Raleigh. Distinctive, classy-but-approachable choice for either sex.

This first name was once a surname derived from Old English. Used quietly a century ago, the current fashion for two-syllable boy names ending in n makes this one a new hit.

Palmer is a name that derives from the fact that pilgrims often carried palms, thus the double meaning. It's a fresher sounding twist other surname style names, such as Spencer, Carter, Porter and Parker.

Unseen in the USA since 1901, Boston rocketed back into the Top 1000 in 2004 and, like other place-names such as Brooklyn, London and Paris, is now a reliable presence on the list.

More universal than Elvis...and more conventionally attractive, too. Cindy Crawford used it for her son, though it's on the rise mainly for girls. The last time Presley ranked in the Top 1000 for boys was 1903, 120 years ago. Today, it's used for girls 14 times as often as for boys, mainly because of the -ley ending.

Though Genesis is a Top 100 girls' name in the US, it's by all rights a unisex choice.

A common unisex name in Israel, more properly written as Ya'el, Yael rose more than 200 places in 2023 to become one of the fastest-rising boys' names of the year in the US.

A classic virtue name for girls stretching back to the Pilgrim times, in more recent years, Honor has become one of the unisex baby names with a near-even gender split. Rarely used on boys before the 2010s, it has nearly doubled in use over the last decade.

Alaska's Denali National Park is the home of the highest mountain in the US, officially renamed Denali in 2014, endowing the name with a lofty feel. There were 20 boys and 55 girls given the name in 2014.

Sekani was the fastest-rising boy name of 2019, inspired by the character Sekani Carter in the 2018 movie The Hate U Give.

Updates Ellis -- but also has a lot of feminine potential thanks to Allison/Ellie similarity.

One of the many new spellings of Zaire that has been climbing the charts lately.

Lovers of the name Carter and the Kardashians method of baby naming have popularized this choice, one of many boys' names starting with K that began life as boys' names starting with C. Karter has been in the charts since 2005, riding on the success of the original Carter. Since 2014, Karter has been just inside the Top 200.

This is one of the ninety-nine attributes of Allah, deemed by Muhammad to be a recommended name for a male child. In this country, it's been primarily associated with boxing immortal Muhammad Ali, known as "the greatest." But Ali is also one of the most popular unisex names for both boys and girls.

Relaxed western place-name that still has some masculine punch, but be warned: this whole posse of similarly trendy names, like Sierra and Dakota, will soon ride toward the sunset.

A melodic name that's taking off in the African-American community, along with sound-alikes such as Amari, Jamari, and Damari.

More popular in its Layton spelling, Leighton is rising in popularity in the US for both sexes simultaneously, although this spelling remains more popular for girls for now – no doubt helped by actress Leighton Meester. Lleyton – as in Australian tennis star Lleyton Hewitt – is another, even more complicated, variant spelling.

Sounds exactly like Ray—but with an on-trend royal vibe. The central protagonist in the newest Star Wars trilogy is a woman named Rey.

Journey is one of the hot new spiritual names. Although Journey was given in 2015 to over 1100 baby girls and fewer than 100 baby boys, it's more visible on the celebrity baby scene as a boys' name: Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green just chose the name for their third son, who also has the unisex middle name River.