Although ‘Madison’ sounds like a perfectly reasonable name for a woman today, I’m fairly certain it was actually invented by Ron Howard in the 1984 film “Splash.” Since then, of course, I see little Madisons everywhere. The name has now entered the American mainstream (much like ‘Wendy’ in Britain).
While scanning through the IMDB.com today, though, I noticed an adult character with this name in a 1987 film. Of course this film was produced after ‘Splash’ so it was almost certainly influenced by the original ‘Madison.’ But within the reality of the film, this character would have been named well before “Splash” came out.
So my question is this: Did the name ‘Madison,’ in fact, come from the film “Splash” or did the creators of this other film just slip up and use a name that wouldn’t have existed when the character in question was named?
Yes, she named herself when Tom Hanks said something about being at Madison and 5th Avenues, or whatever.
And yes, popular movies and TV definately influence names. I’m a teacher, and have seen trendy and “hip” names come from popular culture.
Way too many kids running around with names like:
Shania (Twain)
Mariah (Carey)
Garth (Wayne’s World or Garth Brooks?)
Brooks (Garth or Robinson?)
Michaela (Dr. Quinn)
Dylan (Bob or Thomas…I always want to ask!)
Shelby (Steel Magnolias)
Madison (Splash)
Luke (90210)
I’m not sure all the Madisons out there were named for the Splash character. Anecdotally, I noticed that a lot of girls born between the mid-80s and early 90s to people I know were given family names as first names. Most of these names came from the parents’family trees. Taylor and Lindsay are the only examples I can think of right now (and yes, Lindsay was named after the Lindsay family).
Well, “Madison” derives from the German for “son of Matthew,” and has been a surname for ages. Given the increased popularity in recent years of coopting surnames for use as first names, I suspect “Madison” would have entered common use with or without the movie.
But I’ll keep looking for women older than 17 named Madison.
Madison Starke Perry (1814–1865) was an early governor of Florida. http://dhr.dos.state.fl.us/governors/perry.html
That’s definitely before Splash hit the theaters.
I think women named Madison used to be called Maddy. This would make them hard to find since Maddy was also a given name.
“The earliest occurrence I have found of Madison as a girl’s name is a girl born in 1966 in Guam. During the late 1980s and 1990s, it has burgeoned into popularity in the United States as a girl’s name, and is even used in Australia.”
So yes, the name does predate “Splash,” but the timeing of it’s widespread popularity does appear to coincide with the movie.
I thought this thread was about adult film star Madison. I always thought she was very cute, until she got breast implants. Now she’s a rock singer.
(BTW, Checked with Tuba, she said as long as the link wasn’t to a page with actual nudity, it was acceptable. Took me 20 minutes to find a picture that wasn’t porn, hehe)
A similar phenomenon is a spate of 15-year old girls running around the U.K. all named Kayleigh, after the self-same song by [url=“http://www.marillion.com”]
I always thought it was part of the phenomena of the first names of kids today coming from the surnames of Presidents: Jefferson, Madison, Tyler, Taylor, Jackson …