MTV asks the question: Who is the next Dakota Fanning? Because now that the Princess of Precociousness is growing older (she recently turned 14), we apparently need to find a little girl to fill her old kid-size shoes. The most obvious suggestion is Dakota’s little sister, Elle, but MTV also mentions Little Miss Sunshine’s Abigail Breslin and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’s AnnaSophia Robb as possible contenders. However, considering that Robb is actually a couple months older than Dakota, she makes the least amount of sense.

The truth is, the next “Dakota Fanning” (or “Jodie Foster” or “Drew Barrymore” or “Shirley Temple”) will come along when we aren’t necessarily looking, just as Dakota did with I Am Sam. But that is mostly a moot point anyway, because the conclusion of this MTV story is that Dakota hasn’t actually gone away — she is, herself, the new Dakota Fanning, or at least still the same old Dakota Fanning, alive and acting. While she had seemed to disappear after the controversy over her 2007 Sundance film, Hounddog, she’s actually in a bunch of movies coming out this year, including The Secret Life of Bees and Winged Creatures. And she’ll likely continue getting starring roles well through her official exit from childhood (keep on counting down, creeps).

One thing the story did make me think about, at least, is how I used to consider young actors and actresses “the next so and so” based on who they portrayed as children. For instance, thanks to Big I’d expected David Moscow to grow up to be another Tom Hanks. And thanks to Now and Then, I’d expected Gaby Hoffman to be the new Demi Moore, Thora Birch to be the new Melanie Griffith and Christina Ricci to be the next, umm, Rosie O’Donnell. Meanwhile, around that same time, Kirsten Dunst had played young versions of Sheryl Lee (in Mother Night) and Samantha Mathis (in Little Women) and kind of Meg Ryan (in the animated Anastasia).

Dakota Fanning had an early role playing a young Reese Witherspoon (in Sweet Home Alabama), but her “followers” have, interestingly enough, been linked more to her than to any older actresses. For example, Elle Fanning started out by playing a younger version of Dakota (in I Am Sam). Now, despite the fact that she already broke it big with Little Miss Sunshine, Abigail Breslin (whose brother, Spencer, played Dakota’s brother in The Cat in the Hat) is taking the little Fanning’s rejects, having recently replaced Elle in the lead role of Nick Cassavetes’ My Sister’s Keeper (Dakota’s role was meanwhile recast with 15-year-old Sofia Vassilieva). Then, of course, there’s Dakota Blue Richards of The Golden Compass, who unfortunately shares an obscure first name with the elder Fanning.

Again, AnnaSophia Robb manages to have no real connection to Fanning, except for possibly being confused for her; also, she recently portrayed a young Rachel Bilson in Jumper.

Here, just for fun, are some other well-known young actresses who have portrayed “young ____ ” roles: Rachel Leigh Cooke as young Parker Posey in The House of Yes and as young Angelina Jolie in the TV movie True Women; Hillary Duff as young Patricia Arquette in Human Nature; Alison Lohman as young Jessica Lange in Big Fish; Rachel McAdams as young Gena Rowlands in The Notebook; Michelle Williams as young Natasha Henstridge in Species; Saoirse Ronan as young Vanessa Redgrave in Atonement; Evan Rachel Wood as young Uma Thurman in the upcoming Life Before Her Eyes and Mischa Barton as young Shirley MacLaine in the latest from Richard Attenborough, Closing the Ring. I’m sure I’m missing a whole bunch of others.