Is this name male or female? How to check, and when the answer is a coin flip

To find out whether a name is male or female, look it up in birth-registration records and read two numbers: the share of people with that name recorded as each gender, and how many people that share is based on. Most first names are 95% or more one gender in the country where they are common. A smaller group, such as Riley, is genuinely split, and for others, including Robin, Kim and Jean, the answer changes from one country to the next.

You can do this in the free name gender checker without an account, or open a name's profile page, such as Andrea, to see its figures by country.

Check a name in three steps

1. Enter the first name only. Titles and surnames add nothing. If you have a full name, the given name is extracted, but checking the given name directly is clearer.
2. Add the country, if you know it. This is the step most people skip, and for names that travel it changes the answer. Use the country where the person was named, not where they live now, if you know the difference.
3. Read the probability together with the sample size. The probability says how one-sided the name is. The sample size says how much evidence sits behind it.

Five names where the answer depends on the question

These figures come from national birth-registration statistics: the US Social Security Administration, INSEE in France, INE in Spain, Statistics Canada, the ONS for England and Wales, and Statistics Norway.

Updated 28 September 2026: the US figures were recomputed after the most common American names were restored to the official Social Security Administration counts. The earlier version used Taylor as the split example; with the full US totals Taylor is about 72% female, so Riley replaces it. The "no country given" column now combines every counted register, not only the US and England and Wales, which is why Jean turns male: nearly two million French men outweigh the American women.

Three things follow from this table.

A large sample does not turn a split name into a clear one. Riley's 52% is based on more than 310,000 people. The sample size tells you the split is real, not that the answer is reliable. For Riley with no country, "unknown" is the most accurate answer you can give. The name gender guide lists the common names that sit closest to an even split.

The worldwide answer can be confidently wrong for one country. Jean without a country comes back male at 81%, because French records show nearly two million men with the name. For an American list, that is wrong for almost every Jean in it: 95% of the Jeans in US records are women. The error is not random: it hits every French Jean in the same direction. Andrea, Jean, Kim: the names where the answer depends on the country looks at this in more detail.

Leaning is not the same as belonging. Robin is 86% female in US records, so roughly one Robin in seven in those records is male. A high percentage describes the group of people with the name, not the person in front of you.

How much to trust the answer

Pick a rule before you look at results, not after. The right cut-off depends on what a wrong answer costs.

These cut-offs line up with measured results. In our 2026 benchmark, answers returned at 90% to 99% were correct 97.2% of the time; answers at 50% to 69% were correct 60.8% of the time. The full breakdown is in how accurate gender prediction from a name is.

Why some names return no answer

"Unknown" is a normal result, and it usually means one of three things:

• The name is rare in the records available, so there is not enough evidence either way.
• The name is written in a script that is only partly covered. About half of Thai names and a third of Hebrew names still come back unknown today; our coverage by writing system lists where we are strong and where we are not.
• The input is not a name: a company, a nickname, a placeholder, or a typo too far from any real spelling.

A checker that always returns male or female is not more accurate. It is guessing and not telling you.

Boy or girl name: a note for parents

If you are checking a baby name, the same numbers answer a different question well: how the name has been used. A name at 99% one way will be read that way almost everywhere those records come from. A name near 50% is used for both boys and girls. If you are choosing a name in one country and your family lives in another, look up both. For names that change across borders, see 65 names that are male in one country and female in another.

Frequently asked questions

How can I tell if a name is male or female? Look the name up in a checker built on birth-registration counts, add the country if you know it, and read the probability together with the sample size. Below about 90%, treat the answer as uncertain.

Is Riley a boy or girl name? Both. With no country given, the result is close to even: 52% male across 312,967 people. It leans female in the United States (57%) and strongly male in England and Wales (93%).

Why does the same name give different answers? Because the answer depends on which country's records are used. Jean is male in 100% of French records and female in 95% of US records. Checking without a country gives a worldwide figure that can be wrong for any single country.

Can a name tell you someone's gender? No. It tells you how often people with that name were recorded as male or female. It says nothing certain about an individual, including how they identify.