I have a large family room area that I would like to put down hardwood floors. I have looked into the wood and I think that I like the tongue-in -groove laminate . I understand that an underpad must be laid under it first.
My question is that I have 12x12 ceramic tiles on that floor. Is it possible to leave them and put the wood floor on top of the ceramic tiles?

Depends how level thay are. If they are fairly level, I don't see a problem other than driving nails through the tiles into the subfloor. The tiles may shatter and in doing so, create voids which may sooner or later show up in your new floor as low spots. I suppose you could glue the underlayment to the tiles and avoid that problem.