Most Popular Baby Names Change Dramatically

Just don't name them Jayden and Brayden.

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The 1960s brought us baby names such as April and Sunshine, and naming new Americans has never been the same.

So when Sunday Rose Kidman Urban was born this week, the baby of an actress and a country western singer, news of her distinctive name created only a small stir. While many parents still hew to traditional names, U.S. babies now are tagged with an ever-increasing diversity of names for which the inspirations range from the calendar to languages from afar.

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The diversity in U.S. baby names has exploded since the 1950s. Back then, a quarter of all boys and girls got one of the top 10 baby names, according to Laura Wattenberg, author of "The Baby Name Wizard" (Broadway, 2005). In recent times, the top 10 names account for only one tenth of all baby names, Wattenberg writes. Her blog has an interactive tool that displays the historical popularity of thousands of names from the 1880s to now.

Movies can also cause a name to leap in popularity. While historically, the name Madison was more associated with boys than girls, the feminine usage took off in the 1980s and became ranked 29th as a female baby name in the 1990s, according to the Social Security Administration. Some say the movie "Splash," which came out in 1984, is behind the boom. (Daryl Hannah's mermaid character was named Madison after the street name in New York City.)

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Jeanna Bryner is managing editor of Scientific American. Previously she was editor in chief of Live Science and, prior to that, an editor at Scholastic's Science World magazine. Bryner has an English degree from Salisbury University, a master's degree in biogeochemistry and environmental sciences from the University of Maryland and a graduate science journalism degree from New York University. She has worked as a biologist in Florida, where she monitored wetlands and did field surveys for endangered species, including the gorgeous Florida Scrub Jay. She also received an ocean sciences journalism fellowship from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a firm believer that science is for everyone and that just about everything can be viewed through the lens of science.