Riku 2

Riku is also used as a feminine name in Japanese. However, it's more common for males. So, I think that the "Gender" of this name should be changed from "Masculine" to "Masculine & Feminine". Some evidence for this is that Riku is also used as a name element in unisex and feminine Japanese names, such as Rikū, Rikuu, and Rikuko.

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Sources: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unisex_name
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riku
https://forebears.io/x/forenames/riku
https://forebears.io/x/forenames/rikuu
https://forebears.io/x/forenames/rikuko

Riku was given to 17 boys in America in 2016.

Riku was used as a girl's name back in the olden days. Based on some research that I've done (gathering names from passenger lists and US census data), Riku was a pretty uncommon name to have in the late Edo period and the Meiji & Taishō periods.

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2 syllable names were preferred at the time, more so before the Meiji period, which is why Riku was seen as a girl's name. Towards the 2nd half of the Meiji period and the Taishō period, those types of names were quickly shunted out in popularity by names ending in *ko.

A little boy that I know has the kanjis 莉翔 (jasmine, to fly/soar), which is very odd because 莉 is normally used for girls, since it has a flower meaning. And the pronunciation for 翔 is not normally 'ku.' Japan is in the generation where they want to give their children wonderful (or sometimes puzzling) meanings for names, but unreadable unless specified.

This website says this name is masculine, but I know of at least one instance where the name was used for a female.

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Harada Riku (Riku Harada in Western order) is a character in the manga/anime D. N. Angel. She is the eldest Harada child--Risa, her younger identical twin sister, is Daisuke's first love interest. He later becomes invovled with Riku herself.