You named him what? Today's parents seem to believe they can alter their child's destiny by picking the perfect—preferably idiosyncratic—name. (Destiny, incidentally, was the ninth most popular name for girls in New York City last year.) The current crop of preschoolers includes a few Uniques, with uncommonly named playmates like Kyston, Payton and Sawyer. From Dakota to Heaven, Integrity to Serenity, more babies are being named after places and states of mind. Names with alternative spellings are on the upswing, like Jaxon, Kassidy, Mikayla, Jazmine and Nevaeh (Heaven spelled backward), as are mix-and-match names such as Ashlynn and Rylan. "For the first time in history, the top 50 names account for less than 50 percent of boys born each year, and for less than 40 percent of girls," says Cleveland Kent Evans, professor of psychology at Bellevue University in Nebraska and author of Unusual & Most Popular Baby Names.