Add gender to Salesforce leads and contacts
Create a gender field on Lead and Contact, map it through lead conversion, and let Zapier or Make fill it from the first name or email when a record is created. Existing records go through a data export and the Data Import Wizard.
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Create the fields and map them through conversion
In Setup → Object Manager, add a text field named Gender (API name Gender__c) and a number field named Gender Probability to both Lead and Contact. A text field accepts the lowercase values NameGender returns; a picklist would need the exact values male and female and still could not hold an empty answer cleanly.
Then open Lead → Fields & Relationships → Map Lead Fields and map the two Lead fields to their Contact counterparts. Without that mapping, the gender filled on a lead disappears when the lead is converted.
Keep the probability next to the label. Reports and flows can then use only answers above a threshold you choose instead of treating a weak guess as a fact.
Zapier: New Lead → Find Gender → Update Lead
Add NameGender to your Zapier account with the invitation link on this page. Build a Zap with the trigger Salesforce, New Lead (or New Contact), the action NameGender, Find Gender with First Name mapped to the name field, and the action Salesforce, Update Lead with the record ID from the trigger, Gender into Gender__c and Probability into Gender Probability.
Leads from web forms often have only an email address. Set the NameGender step’s type of value to Email and map Email; only the part before the @ is read. Map the Country field when you collect it, as a two-letter code.
A three-step Zap needs a paid Zapier plan. In Make the same scenario is Salesforce’s watch-records trigger, NameGender’s Get Gender from a Name, then Salesforce’s update-record module.
Backfill existing records
Export Leads or Contacts with their record ID, first name, email and country through Data Export or a report. Upload the file in the NameGender dashboard, map the first-name column, check the cost and start the job.
Load the result back with the Data Import Wizard or Data Loader, matching on the Salesforce ID and mapping the two new columns. Distinct first names are looked up once, so the cost follows the number of different names, not the number of rows.
Questions
Why a text field instead of a picklist?
NameGender returns male, female or an empty value for unknown names. A text field stores all three without validation errors.
What happens on lead conversion?
Only mapped fields carry over. Map the Lead gender fields to the Contact fields in Map Lead Fields.
Is the email lookup as good as a first name?
When the address contains the name, yes. Role addresses such as sales@ come back unknown, and still cost a credit.
Can I use Salesforce Flow instead of Zapier?
Yes, with an HTTP callout to the REST API. Zapier and Make avoid writing and maintaining Apex or a named credential.
Related pages
Fill a gender property on every new HubSpot contact from the first name or email. Zapier and Make steps, plus a CSV route for existing contacts.
Append a gender column to a customer list, CRM export or lead database, with a confidence field you can filter on and no monthly reset on purchased credits.
Upload a CSV or XLSX name list and get a gender column back, with confidence fields, automatic deduplication and the cost shown before charging.
Reading the gender field alone discards everything that says whether to believe it. What each response field means and the thresholds behind confidence.
Check it against your own list
Every number on this page is reproducible with a free key. If your data breaks it, that is the more interesting result.