FAMILY WAY : And the Last Shall Be First . . .

Goodby, Jason, Justin and Josh. So long, Rebecca, Rachel and Sara. A new trend is sweeping the sandbox set--a survey of newborns at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica indicates that children are getting surnames for first names: Hunter, Taylor and Madison; Cooper, Carter, Walker, Wilson, not to mention Shelby, Hudson, Drake and Smith. Nowadays, when parents call the kids for dinner, it sounds like they’re yelling for their brokerage firms.

Some experts say the trend is simply an effort to be unique. Others see it as the West Coast mutation of an upper-crust East Coast habit: using family names, though usually as middle names, to honor matrilineal branches, as in George Herbert Walker Bush, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller.

And these are not all boys’ names. Girls are going by Hunter, Schuyler, Kendall and Riley. (Maybe Dan Quayle was right. Maybe Murphy Brown really is a powerful cultural influence.)

Stacy Jackson of Pacific Palisades named her daughter Taylor because she wanted a name that would command respect. And it could be male or female. “I like that. It’s a little mysterious.”

For parents seeking truly unique names, Brooklyn College English professor Leonard Ashley, past president of the American Name Society, advises: “John or Mary is highly unusual.”