Now there's a name you don't hear too often anymore--people just don't name their kids names like Chester or Marvin. It's all "Jaden" and "Dylan" and "Dakota." 'Cause they want to be 'unique.' Right.
Don't even GET me started! The idea that "Madison" is one of the most-popular names for girls is utterly astounding.
Why not!? Go ahead and get started! The first little girl I saw named Madison was about 2 in 1991 (daughter of a co-worker), so she'd be maybe 20 now. I bet when she was younger she thought her name was so unique (justifiably), and now she must scratch her head just as much as Mike.
But where did it come from, though? The only Madison prior to the mid-1980s was Daryl Hannah's character in Splash, and that was a joke.
Actually that could be it. That's just the sort of thing a lot of dippy white folk would use as an inspiration for naming their kids. My cousin from Orange Co. has a 14-year-old daughter named Madison, and I bet that's where he got it. He might have been a little ahead of the curve on naming her, but not by much.
How sad if true. But then lower-class white folk tend to name their kids after TV characters and such. On my old block in Queens in the late '80s there were, like, 4 little girls named Ashley (who was a character on
The Young & the Restless at the time). And in Queens-ese, Ashley was pronounced "EAISH-lee" (the spelling doesn't do it justice -- think very nasal Noo Yawk accent)