The top Latino baby names of 2012 have been released! It turns out last year was heavily influenced lots of musicians, the vampire obsession, and of course, our telenovelas. The 2012 list was both predictable and surprising, since there were certain names I didn't had no idea were so popular.
We even predicted one name on the list last year! Take a look for yourself and see if your baby's name made the list…
Read more ¿Qué más?: Our prediction of the top 10 baby names for 2013
According to babycenter.com, the top 5 most popular Hispanic boy names last year were Santiago, Matias, Sebastian, Mateo, and Nicolas. How coincidental since at least one of our staff has a sone named Sebastian! What can I say? It's an awesome name!
As far as girl's names go, the top five were Sofia, Isabella, Valentina, Camila, and Valeria. This site shows that this list is a little more predictable since Sofia has been number 1 for the past six years and the remainder of the list didn't budge much in 2012.
2012 turned out to be a year of pop culture inspiration. According to babycenter.com, Latinos were inspired their beloved telenovelas, singers, and even vampires! Parents can thank Colombian singer__, Juanes__ for having a great year as he was a big influencer in baby naming. The names Juan and Esteban were popular–especially Esteban advancing more than 48 spots on the list compared to 2011.
2012 was also the year the world was supposed to end which seemed to have us all seeking for some hope. This led to many Latinos to name their kids Jesus, Isaac, Bautista, Caleb, and Salvador. As telenovela lovers, how ignore names inspired by those soap operas? Marcos, Fernanda, Laura, Vanessa, and Violeta all gained popularity due to telenovela characters or actors. The results showed that we also loved the talent TV show*, Pequenos Gigantes* (Little Giants) and were influenced by Maria Jose, Jimena, Patricio.
Finally the vampire craze–thanks Twilight!– kept Isabella, Alicia, Victoria in strong spots on the list as well. Salome and Ana also grew in popularity (guess we love us some True Blood).
Will these names change in 2013? We will have to wait and see as the year has just begun and we're anticipating lots of great new movies, albums and telenovelas. For the full list of baby girl names, check here, and for boys follow this link!
Image via Thinkstock
