What 'Kulture' Says About Our Culture of Unisex Baby Names

Gwyneth Paltrow's baby Apple, Beyoncé's baby Blue, and now Cardi B's baby Kulture is just the latest in a trend of unisex names in the U.S. in the last few years. 

Baby name analysts like Laura Wattenberg, founder of the online name database and blog Baby Name Wizard, says it's hard to tell if this trend is entirely about parents deliberately choosing gender-neutral names. But by looking at databases like Baby Name Wizard's, or by cross-referencing the Social Security Administration's annual lists of popular boy and girl baby names, Wattenberg says there is a clear pattern to be found: the decline of traditional names.

"It's actually a revolution over the past generation," she says. "Everybody wants their child's name to stand out and impress people."

In the last few years, new, alternative "word names" (like True, or Journey), "place names" (like London) and even last names as first names (like Campbell) have grown in popularity. Wattenberg says these names default to unisex because they don’t really have a common gender association yet.

Gender is attributed to everything from colors to hurricanes, and even phonetics — what words, and names, sound like. Wattenberg says it's almost impossible to find a formerly traditional female name that's commonly in use for boys today.

"The move toward unisex names is actually in most cases just a move toward the masculine," she says. "So you might meet a girl named Alex, but you know she's not going to have a brother named Katie."

Unisex names very rarely remain that way for long. Over time, they tip in one direction or the other, like "Leslie" and "Ashley." A century ago, those names were all the rage for boys — not as much anymore. Like so much, Wattenberg says, naming trends capture our notions of femininity and masculinity at a given moment. Unisex names, and their subjectivity, just show that those concepts are always changing.