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The American business magazine Forbes is known for its annual rankings of business titans and media moguls based on their influence and earnings. Now, Forbes has identified a newly powerful demographic: the celebrity soother set.

Forbes.com released its first top-10 list of influential children under the age of 5 last week. While the top two toddlers, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt and Suri Cruise, are still in diapers and have yet to, well, speak, they are undeniably powerful, says Lacey Rose, a senior Forbes.com reporter and one of the creators of the list.

"We've seen this growing fascination with all things celebrity, and that includes their children," she says. "There's no question that there's a tremendous amount of attention being paid to these little kids."

Also on the list are Shiloh's siblings (except Maddox, who is 6) and the children of Britney Spears, Madonna, Tiger Woods, the late Anna Nicole Smith and Victoria and David Beckham.

The authors started with a list of more than 50 celebrity kids. They tallied the children's web presence, press coverage and commercial value over the past year. Then, they forwarded a shortlist to a polling company to measure public awareness of both the kids and their parents.

One-year-old Shiloh, for instance, has been the subject of more that 2,000 articles since her birth. As the only biological child of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, she both represents their fame and intensifies it, Ms. Rose says.

"The average reader can't relate to what it's like being on the red carpet. You can't relate to what it's like being an A-list celebrity," Ms. Rose says. "But you can relate to what it's like being a parent."

As a culture, we also love a royal-style heir apparent, says Kim Blank, a professor of literature and cultural studies at the University of Victoria.

"These little people are endowed with some genetic celebrity magic, with beauty and wealth, and, of course, commercial potential both for themselves and those who can manage to snap pictures of them," he says. "And apparently, we're willing to buy into it, because those pictures do sell."

And when the children have been adopted, such as the list's Pax and Zahara Jolie-Pitt and David Banda, Madonna and Guy Ritchie's adopted son, they tap into a "prince and the pauper" narrative.

"They are suddenly transformed from third-world poverty to first-world not just wealth and riches, but celebrity," he says. "We like that fairy-tale story."

So while this fascination with blessed babies may seem frivolous, it's as legitimate as an interest in Bill Gates or Oprah Winfrey. Just ask the makers of the strollers and baby clothes that appear in the celebrity baby coverage. Then, there's the income generated in the celebrity news marketplace.

"If you stick their faces on the cover of magazines, they will fly off the shelves," Ms. Rose says. This creates wealth for both the media and the parents. Or for the charities they support, as was the case with the Jolie-Pitts and the reportedly $1-million exclusive sale of Shiloh's first baby pictures to People magazine.

Other potentially lucrative benefits accrue to the parents, too. Ms. Rose says.

"Celebrity children become an increasingly important part of a celebrity's public relations portfolio."

In some cases, she found, a child can actually raise the public's esteem for celebrity parents. Take Suri Cruise, for instance. A number of media watchers told Ms. Rose that the one-year-old "humanized her parents and their relationship. All of a sudden that couple seems more real and likeable," she says. "That's power."

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Forbes' top 10 most influential infants

1) Shiloh Jolie-Pitt

2) Suri Cruise

3) Zahara Jolie-Pitt

4) Sean Preston Federline

5) Pax Jolie-Pitt

6) Sam Alexis Woods

7) (tie) David Banda (son of

Madonna and Guy Ritchie) and Dannielynn Birkhead (daughter

of the late Anna Nicole Smith

and Larry Birkhead)

9) (tie) Romeo Beckham

and Cruz Beckham