Cataleya
Feminine · “From the cattleya orchid”
Cataleya comes from a flower: the cattleya, a broad-lipped tropical orchid that gardeners in nineteenth-century England went slightly mad for, and that Colombia later took as its national bloom. The extra syllable in the middle gives the name a four-beat swing — ka-ta-LAY-ah — with the stress landing softly and the ending trailing off in the same open vowel that Amelia and Aaliyah share. It reads the same way in English and in Spanish, which is a rarer thing than it sounds.
How old is the name Cataleya?
Cataleya first appears in US birth records in 2011 — 14 years ago. The typical Cataleya is a kid of about 5 — this name's wave is very recent. About 12,000 people named Cataleya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cataleya most popular?
Cataleya peaked in 2024, reaching #236 nationally. Today it ranks #237, 1 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Where it comes from
From Cattley to Cataleya
The story of Cataleya
The orchid came first. Cattleya was formally named in the 1820s, and the showy, ruffled species that grows in the Andes went on to become Colombia's national flower. The respelled personal name arrived through the 2011 film Colombiana, whose heroine, Cataleya Restrepo, is named for that flower by her family; the name appeared in US birth records that same period and has been climbing since. Its strength has stayed concentrated in states with large Latino communities, where the Spanish-friendly spelling reads naturally on sight.
Meaning
From the cattleya orchid
The flower itself is an eponym rather than a word with a translation: botanists named the genus Cattleya in the 1820s after Cattley, the English horticulturist who first coaxed one into bloom in Britain. So the name means the orchid, and the orchid means a gardener's surname — no deeper root to dig for.
How the name formed
- Cattley
- Cattleya
- Cataleya
Related forms: Cattleya · Cataleya · Cataleia · Catalaya
Pronouncing Cataleya
kat-uh-LAY-uh
Stress on the third syllable. Spanish speakers give it purer vowels — ka-ta-LE-ya — and the two versions sit comfortably side by side.
Nicknames for Cataleya
High
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 2011
- Most girls named
- 20241,315 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #236reached in 2024
- Change vs 2024
- −0.1%1,314 in 2025, from 1,315
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Cataleya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cattleya in Botanical Latin — spelling variant
- Cataleya in Spanish — same name
- Cataleia in Portuguese — spelling variant
- Catalaya in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: California, Texas, Florida.
Cataleyas among us
people named Cataleya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 1,223 born in 2025 was named Cataleya
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cataleya
- #237
- Cataleya on the 2025 chart
- #131
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cataleya went to 1,314 girls in 2025, but Kataleya, Cattaleya and Kataleyah and the rest below are the same name said out loud. Together the 10 spellings went to 2,270, which makes it the 131st most-given girls’ name of the year — 106 places above the chart.
and 2 rarer spellings.
About 1 girl in 708 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 1,223 for Cataleya itself.
Spellings are grouped by a fixed rule that folds interchangeable English spellings of one sound (ck/k, ph/f, x/ks, a non-initial y for i) and keeps vowels apart, so Sean and Shawn stay separate names. It errs towards splitting: a family here is never larger than the truth. SSA national data, 2025. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Rochelle test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cataleya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Rochelle climbed just as high around 1969, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Rochelle's path sketches the road Cataleya is walking now.
Cataleya is climbing fast right now. Steep climbs tend to come with steep descents — the quicker a name arrives, the more firmly it belongs to its moment.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Where Cataleya is headed
Cataleya looks set to keep climbing gently, with roughly 23% more babies a year by 2030 if the current curve holds.
Medium confidence — fitted on official counts through 2025.
A damped-trend projection of the official birth data — a sketch of momentum, not a promise. Every name's forecast, ranked.
Cataleya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cataleya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Spelled the way it sounds in both English and Spanish, so it survives a bilingual household without needing two pronunciations.
- Several ready-made short forms — Cata, Cat, Leya — each already in use as a name elsewhere.
- Belongs to the flower-name family alongside Dahlia, Camellia and Magnolia, all of them orchids and blooms named for people.
- Rare enough that a child is unlikely to share it in a classroom, while still being familiar in sound.
- Expect to spell it out. Cattleya, Cataleia, Catalaya and Cataleya all circulate, and the doubled-t botanical version is the one a dictionary will offer.
- The film that carried the name into wide use is a violent revenge thriller, and its heroine is an assassin. Most people meeting a child won't make the connection, but someone occasionally will.
- The wave is very recent, so nearly everyone carrying the name is still a child. There is no adult generation yet to show how it wears on a résumé — which also means no fixed impression to work against.
- It sits close to Catalina and Natalia in sound, and will sometimes be heard as one of those on the phone.
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What they receive
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Cataleya
Feminine · #237 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cataleyas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 12,000 people named Cataleya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cataleya?
- Cataleya is the most-used spelling in US records — 1,314 of the 2,270 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Kataleya, Cattaleya, Kataleyah, Kattaleya, Kataleia, Cataleia and Cataleyah.
- How popular is the name Cataleya in 2025?
- Cataleya ranks #237 among US girl names in 2025, with 1,314 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cataleya?
- About 1 in every 1,223 US girls born in 2025 was named Cataleya — 1,314 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cataleya with classmates?
- Cataleya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cataleya
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Alexandra#237 · Lucille#237 · Nyla#236 · Andrea#235 · Camille#240 · Arianna#234 · Collins#241 · Maisie#233
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cataleya? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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