Taylor Townsend is playing doubles at Roland Garros this week alongside Coco Gauff, and every time the broadcast shows the name "Taylor" in a competitive tennis context, something quiet but measurable happens in the data. The name Taylor has one of the most interesting gender histories in the entire SSA database — a 40-year arc of flip-flopping that no other top-100 name quite replicates — and Townsend's Paris presence is a good excuse to dig into it.
How Taylor Became a Gender Pendulum
In 1975, Taylor barely existed as a first name in US records. It was almost entirely a surname — a professional designation from Middle English meaning "one who tailors cloth." Then, in the late 1970s, something shifted. Parents began using occupational surnames as given names, and Taylor was one of the first to break through at scale.
The name entered birth records predominantly male in its early years. Through the 1980s, it was roughly 60-70% male. Then something interesting happened around 1990: the gender split began inverting. By 1993, female Taylors outnumbered male Taylors in SSA data for the first time. By 2000, the name was about 70% female. The probable driver? Taylor Dayne, the 1980s pop star, had introduced the name to a generation of girls' pop culture. Taylor peaked for girls around 1993 at #8 nationally — a top-10 finish that locked in the female association for a solid decade.
The Swift Factor
No discussion of the name Taylor is complete without addressing Taylor Swift, who was born in 1989 at the exact peak of the name's female dominance. Swift's parents were clearly tracking naming trends, consciously or not. By the time she became a global phenomenon in the late 2000s, she had become the single most famous Taylor alive — and her presence has likely sustained the female association of the name through what might otherwise have been another gender flip.
Here's what's actually happening in the data, though: the name has been quietly masculinizing again for the past several years. Male Taylor usage has been creeping upward as surname-names come back into fashion for boys. Taylor is now sitting at something close to a genuine 50-50 split in more recent birth years — which makes it, by any reasonable definition, one of the most authentically unisex names in American naming history.
What "Genuinely Unisex" Actually Means
Most names that are called "unisex" are actually 80-20 or 75-25 in one direction. True unisex names — ones where neither gender has a commanding majority — are surprisingly rare. The SSA data suggests that in any given recent year, there are maybe 15-20 names that qualify as genuinely split. Taylor is one of them. So are Jordan, Riley, Avery, and Sage.
What unites these names is usually a combination of occupational or nature origin (Taylor, Avery, Sage), a hard consonant that avoids the traditionally "soft" feminine sound profile, and a cultural moment where a high-profile female bearer normalized the female usage at scale. Each of these names had a famous woman associated with it during its key growth period.
Taylor Townsend and What She Adds to the Name
Taylor Townsend is 28 years old, was the junior world No. 1 at age 17, and has had one of the most resilient comeback stories in women's tennis. Her presence in Paris adds a new chapter to the name's athletic biography — one that's specifically about endurance, return, and excellence on clay. That's a different narrative from Swift's pop dominance, and it potentially broadens the name's appeal to parents who prioritize athletic and achievement-oriented name associations.
Interestingly, Townsend was born in 1996 — right at the tail end of Taylor's peak female-naming era. Her parents were part of the generation that made Taylor a girls' name. Now she's one of the most visible Taylors in elite sports, operating at exactly the moment when the name's gender pendulum is swinging back toward balance.
The Other Unisex Names Worth Watching in 2026
If you love the Taylor model — genuinely usable for any gender, historically rooted, professionally resonant — there's a cluster of names worth considering. Morgan follows a similar arc: Welsh surname, predominantly female for two decades, now rebalancing. Quinn is younger in its unisex career but moving fast. Reagan skews female in current data despite its presidential association.
The common thread is that all of these names have enough occupational, geographic, or surname weight to feel substantive for any gender — they don't read as "feminine with the feminine stripped out" in the way that some name-neutralization attempts feel. Taylor is the archetype. Its 40-year gender journey is one of the most data-rich stories in American naming history, and Townsend's Roland Garros run just added another footnote.
Data source: U.S. Social Security Administration. Analysis by NamesPop.
Found this helpful?
Share it with someone who’s picking a name.