Most Popular Latino Names 2012: Sofía And Santiago

By , Huffington Post Latino Voices

Baby name brainstormers beware! It seems Isabella is ready to take a bite out of Sofía for the top spot of the 100 most popular Hispanic baby names for girls, according to BabyCenter en Español. As for the boys’ list, Santiago is still sitting pretty at the top as Matías is slowly rising, moving from third to second in 2012.

On Monday, the Spanish-language pregnancy and parenting website released the lists of the trendiest names for boys and girls in 2012, based on the over 60,000 names given by mothers in the United States and 22 Spanish-speaking countries whose baby was born between January and November of last year.

Both Sofía and Santiago have topped the list for six consecutive years but, according to deputy editor at BabyCenter en Español Erika Cerebros, Isabella is not far from being crowned the most popular girl name among Hispanic parents thanks to Isabella “Bella” Marie Swan Cullen, the main protagonist of the vampire-werewolf fantasy movies saga “Twilight”.

For the boys, big changes in the prevalence of some names were credited to the leading men in telenovelas like Telemundo’s “Corazón Valiente” and Univision’s “Abismo de Pasión” and to the growing popularity of Colombian rockero Juanes, whose first and middle names (Juan Esteban), used to create his artistic name, rose 26 and 48 places respectively — with Esteban seeing the biggest jump on the list.

READ MORE HERE

This article was first published in Huffington Post Latino Voices.

Carolina Moreno is an intern on The Huffington Post’s Latino Voices vertical. She is currently a senior at New York University studying Journalism,Latin American Studies, and French language. In the past she has worked with Dateline NBC as well as ABC News NOW. Her interests include Inter-American relations, Latin American politics, and human rights issues on both sides of the canal.

[Photo by paparutzi]

Subscribe today!

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Must Read