Popular Baby Names For 2012

The verdicts are in for the first quarter of 2012, with the most popular baby names for 2012 taking their cues from The Hunger Games.

Musical names have overtaken Hollywood for inspiration and boys names are also taking a cue from the girls, with Nameberry predicting this year's popular culture to dominate the list of top baby names. 

Ivy, Rue and Adele have created the most amount of attention in an analysis of nearly 3million views on the site's individual name pages during the first four months of 2012.

 Ivy has jumped to the Top 300 baby names for 2012, thanks to Beyonce and Jay-Z's baby daughter Blue Ivy

Taking over from Twilight as the primary cultural influence on names, The Hunger Games has catapulted Rue to the top choices list.

The findings were determined by looking at worldwide name page views, two thirds of which were traced to the U.S., ten per cent to the U.K. and ten per cent to Australia.  

 

For the girls, the blockbuster has also seen interest in botanical names, from the heroine’s name Katniss, to gentle Primrose, Posy and Clove. 

And while Cato plays a villain in the film, the name lends its origins to ancient Rome. Like Atticus and Cassius, Cato is being resurrected by modern parents. 

Although the name Blue Ivy is trademarked by famous parents Beyonce and Jay-Z,  that hasn't stop parents from choosing the name for their own babies. 

While Blue is popular, inspiring a new taste for color names, from Indigo to Scarlett, Ivy has already risen into the Top 300 baby names and is set to move much higher.

BABY NAMES 2012: MOST POPULAR CHOICES

• Rue
• Emmett 
• Ivy 
• Weston
• Adele 
• Grayson 
• Aria 
• Cyrus 
• Estelle 
• Cato 
• Blythe

Singing sensation Adele is also triumphing in the baby name arena, with this French diminutive of Adelaide re-entering the Top 1000 for the first time in nearly half a century.

With the same ring as Adele, Estelle is also having a moment, after Sweden's royal couple named their baby daughter Estelle earlier this year. 

Ending with a consonant, rather than a vowel sound, this is becoming a trend for for girls’ names following several years of popular a-ending names such as Isabella, Sophia, and Olivia.

Emmett has garnered a lot of attention for the boys, mainly thanks to Twilight's Emmett Cullen. 

However there is a new wave of boys' names that also end in -ett, their popularity rising on the coattails of girls names such as Eva and Becca, with Everett and Beckett top contenders.