Why name "Madison" so popular for girls?

[David Bowie]

From:    Duane Campbell <dcamp911 at JUNO.COM>

: We named our daughter, born in 1972, Megan. The name came from a
: novel I had read several years before which took place in 19th century
: Ireland. We had never known anyone named Megan and there was no pop
: culture influence. I clearly remember a nurse at the hospital mentioning
: what an unusual name it was. Of course, several of her classmates were
: named Megan. I have no idea where it came from.

Of course, as those who study fashions and fads have found, this is
*exactly* the way fashions and fads work--people don't notice any
precipitating event (events, more likely), and think an idea is original to
them, but it's actually part of a larger fashion trend that's occurring.

Consider, for example, the "have a day" fad of the mid- to late-80s
(parodying the "have a nice day" smiling face, this one had a straight-line
mouth). Lots of my friends were convinced that *I* had invented that, and I
don't recall seeing it anywhere before I started decorating everything I
owned with it, but given the widespread commercial availability of the
design pretty quickly thereafter (I got given a keychain with it as part of
a birthday present--sadly, for a teenager, not including keys to a car--at
one point).

That fad presumably started somewhere, but it seems to have spread "under
the radar" in some way until it burst out into the open. Consider clothing
fashions, grooming trends, and even linguistic fads--postposed "NOT!", for
example, had apparently existed under people's active perception for at
least decades before Wayne's World brought it out for everyone to see.

Naming trends seem to follow the same pattern.

(Though if my younger daughter has multiple classmates named Hriana, I'll
buy a hat so that I can eat it.)

David Bowie                                         http://pmpkn.net/lx
    Jeanne's Two Laws of Chocolate: If there is no chocolate in the
    house, there is too little; some must be purchased. If there is
    chocolate in the house, there is too much; it must be consumed.