It's difficult for companies to stay at the top of their industries for long. The competition in the global economy is just too fierce. Yet, there are proven winners, such as Nike ( NKE 2.94%), Hershey ( HSY -0.33%), and PepsiCo ( PEP 0.08%), that have stood the test of time due to their beloved brands and the pricing power it gives them.

The same is true for stocks. Consider that global icon Apple Inc. (ticker: AAPL) yields a mere 0.4%, despite having roughly $100 billion in net income and one of the most entrenched brands in the planet. That's because it's easy to maintain a nominal dividend, but much harder to drive a huge yield – even for titans like Apple.

Many stocks don't offer particularly high yields. The stocks in the S&P 500, for instance, average a yield of just 1.3%. That's not a terribly exciting rate of return on dividends for income investors.

These four top dividend stocks offer dependable passive income streams and solid total return, and they are too cheap to ignore any longer.

Here are some of the S&P 500’s fastest-growing dividends over the last five and ten years. Best S&P 500 stocks for 5-year dividend growth. The stocks with the best five-year gro