Even before the first national final is aired, there are already a couple of names on the list of participants for the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Azerbaijan. Although the artists are not officially confirmed yet – this would require the entries to be officially submitted – it’s most likely that there won’t be any changes. So let’s have a quick look on what names to remember throughout the next half year!

Belgium has decided internally for singer Iris, who is also known under other names (Airis, Laura Van den Bruel, who knows what else). The 16-year-old was chosen by the flemish broadcaster Één, which is responsible for Eurovision every other year, alternating with the Walloon broadcaster RTBF. This year, Éen is expected to skip the national final and choose a song for Iris internally, as it did most recently with Tom Dice in 2010.

Cyprus is going for Ivi Adamou, who became popular through her participation in the Greek “X Factor”. Cyprus was the first country to announce its participant for ESC 2012. CyBC will hold a national final, in which Ivi Adamou will present 4 songs.

Macedonia has selected one of the biggest names in the country’s music scene: Kaliopi. The singer was meant to represent Macedonia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1996. However, in this special year, Macedonia was one of the countries that failed to qualify for the final in Oslo. Kaliopi will present a number of songs in a national final.

Serbia is bringing back one of Eurovision’s biggest stars of recent years: none other than Zeljko Joksimovic, who came 2nd in 2004 with “Lane moje” and also made some impact as a composer of successful entries. In addition to that, he was the male hosts of the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade, Serbia. There won’t be a national final; instead, Zeljko Joksimovic will pick one of his own compositions as the Serbian entry.

Lately, Slovakia has been a synonym for Question Mark. First, it was unclear as to whether Slovakia would participate in ESC 2012 at all. Now, the country is confusing Europe with a rumoured participant: Miro Šmajda was announced as the Slovak representative, but the announcement was subsequently withdrawn. The term “misunderstanding” was used. However, the current situation for Slovakia is that nothing is decided yet – just for a change!

That’s all the news on the first names for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012. Stay tuned for the next round-up of internally selected participants as they are announced.