The Hottest Baby Name Trends for 2012

Pippa, Oliver, Weston and More: The Hottest Baby Name Trends for 2012

From cowboy names to vampires to British royalty, here's the inspiration behind the names that will be big this year. (8 Photos)

Raven Snook on Jan 11, 2012 at 12:18PM

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a Raven Snook on Jan 5, 2012 at 1:08PM

The era of super wacky baby names may be on the wane in 2012 (hooray!) but moms and dads still want their kids to stand out from the crowd. This year, they're doing that by mixing up spellings and finding inspiration in cowboy names, androgynous picks and -- still -- the supernatural. Here's what's going to be hot in baby names:

Rhyme for a Reason
Although Aiden only cracked Social Security’s top ten baby names in 2010, parents certainly like the sound of it. “Forty-one names that rhymed with Aiden made Social Security’s top 1,000 names list, including Jayden and Braedyn,” says Laura Wattenberg, founder of babynamewizard.com. “[Rhyming] is an easy way for parents to create names that are distinctive but don’t sound odd.” Other moms and dads opt to stick with a common name but spell it in an unusual way, and again, Aiden is a great example. According to Baby Names Made Easy author Amanda Barden, “Aidan is the traditional spelling, but the most popular spelling on the charts right now is Aiden,” which is the spelling rocker Rod Stewart used for his latest offspring. “It also shows up a bunch of other ways, including Aaden, Aden, Ayden, Aedan, Adan and Aydan.” According to a recent article in The New York Times, some parents are so obsessed with finding a one-of-a-kind spelling for their baby’s name that they do extensive googling before they settle on the letters.