Madison, an English surname-turned-given-name, was originally a matronymic name meaning "son of Maud," where Maud is a variant of Matilda meaning "strength in battle." It was primarily used as a boy's name in the United States throughout much of the 1900s, but that changed in the mid-1980s when the name was given to a female character in the film "Splash," released in 1984. Madison debuted on the Social Security Administration's top 1,000 for girl names the following year and was a top-100 girl's name by 1993. It continued to rise and was a top-10 girl's name each year between 1997 and 2014 before settling in the top-50.
