Madison

Derived from an English surname meaning 'son of Maud', tracing to a medieval diminutive of Matilda. For roughly a century it appeared on American birth certificates almost exclusively as an occasional masculine tribute to the fourth president. Its career as a female staple began with the 1984 film Splash, in which a mermaid adopted it from a Manhattan street sign as a joke.

The name reads as the turn-of-the-millennium playground roll call in miniature. With an estimated average age of twenty, it currently populates college seminar rooms and entry-level orientations. A Madison tends to be pictured managing three active screens and an iced coffee with equal determination. Roughly two-thirds of living bearers belong to Generation Z, arriving just in time to watch the physical video rental store disappear.