[1] In other countries or cultures, social norms oppose such names and transgressions may result in discrimination, ridicule, and psychological abuse.
Some characters have masculine connotations tied to them (for example, 偉 (wěi), 冠 (guàn), 宏 (hóng), 廷 (tíng), 傑 (jié), 豪 (háo)), some have feminine connotations (for example, 娟 (juān), 妍 (yán), 淑 (shú), 卉 (huì), 晴 (qíng), 薇 (wéi)), and some can be fully gender-neutral or will only gain a masculine/feminine leaning when paired with another character that has a specific leaning (for example, 家 (jiā), 安 (ān), 子 (zǐ), 文 (wén), 品 (pǐn), 華 (huá)).
Some popular examples are: Many Indian names become unisex when written with Latin characters because of the limitations of transliteration.
The spellings Chandra and Krishna, for example, are transliterations of both the masculine and feminine versions of those names.
Nehal, Sonal, Sonu, Snehal, Niral, Pranjal and Anmol are used commonly to name baby boys or girls in western states of India such as Gujarat.
Most Punjabi Sikh first names such as "Sandeep, Gurdeep, Kuldeep, Mandeep", "Surjeet, Gurjeet, Kuljeet, Harjeet, Manjeet", "Harpreet, Gurpreet, Jaspreet, Kulpreet, Manpreet", "Prabhjot, Harjot, Gurjot, Jasjot" and "Sukhjinder, Bhupinder, Jasbinder, Parminder, Kulvinder, Harjinder, Ranjodh, Sheeraz, Hardeep, Kirandeep, Sukhdeep, Govindpal, Encarl, Rajan" are unisex names and equally commonly given to either sex.
[5] Also, names derived from Dari Persian and Arabic, but not used among native speakers of those languages, are common among South Asian Muslims.
Since Persian does not assign genders to inanimate nouns, some of these names are gender-neutral, for example Roshan, Hitesh, Sudesh, Parveen, and Insaaf.
Many high-profile Japanese celebrities such as Hikaru Utada, Jun Matsumoto, Ryo Nishikido, and Izumi Sakai have unisex names.
As of January 1, 2022, females are now allowed to request a male surname for themselves or for their children without any additional paperwork.
Notably, a class of names that are derived from nature can be often used for either sex, for example: Aalto (wave), Halla (frost), Lumi (snow), Paju (willow), Ruska (fall colors), and Valo (light).
Similarly, there are some (sometimes archaic) adjectives which carry no strong gender connotations, like Kaino (timid), Vieno (calm) or Lahja (a gift).
Certain names can have unisex diminutives, such as Alex, which can be short for Aleksandra or Aleksanteri (or variants thereof).
Popular unisex names of French origin include: There are also pairs of masculine and feminine names that have slightly different spellings but identical pronunciation, such as André / Andrée, Frédéric / Frédérique, René / Renée and Gabriel / Gabrielle.
[15] In France and French-speaking countries, it can happen for people to have a combination of both masculine and feminine given names, but most of these include "Marie", such as Jean-Marie, Marie-Jean, Marie-Pierre.
[17][18] In 2008 the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ruled, that under certain circumstances this cannot be enforced, even if the child has only one given name.
Among Irish Catholics in the 19th and 20th centuries, it was not unusual to give a child that was assigned male at birth a feminine middle name, particularly "Mary", as a sign of religious devotion.
Joseph Mary Plunkett was a signatory of the Irish Declaration of Independence in 1916, and was later executed as one of the leaders of the Easter Rising.
Names that end with ir and mar tend to be unisex also, such as Nadir, Aldenir, Dagmar and Niomar – though in these cases there are some exceptions.
Some names for devotional titles of the virgin Mary, such as Guadalupe, Trinidad and Reyes are used for both genders, although more often by women.
Some names include: Like in English, some common nicknames are unisex such as Álex (Alejandro, Alejandra), Cris (Cristina, Cristian, Cristóbal), Dani (Daniel, Daniela) and Gabi (Gabriel, Gabriela).