Cattaleya
Feminine · “an orchid”
Behind this name is a flower: the Cattleya orchid, named in the 1820s for William Cattley, an English merchant who grew rare plants in his greenhouse outside London. One species, Cattleya trianae, is the national flower of Colombia, which is how the word traveled from Latin botany into Spanish-speaking households and then onto American birth certificates. In the mouth it is all open vowels with a lift in the middle — kat-uh-LAY-uh.
How old is the name Cattaleya?
Cattaleya first appears in US birth records in 2012 — 13 years ago. The typical Cattaleya is a kid of about 4 — this name's wave is very recent. About 1,000 people named Cattaleya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Cattaleya most popular?
Cattaleya peaked in 2024, reaching #1374 nationally. Today it ranks #1478, 104 places below that high. See the whole 2024 chart.
Cattaleya appears on this list:
Where it comes from
From Cattley to Cattaleya
The story of Cattaleya
John Lindley, the botanist who cataloged much of what arrived in nineteenth-century English glasshouses, gave the orchid genus the name Cattleya in 1824 in honor of William Cattley, who had coaxed one of the first specimens into flower. Because the showiest Cattleyas are South American, the word settled deeply into Latin America — Cattleya trianae was declared Colombia's national flower — and it is from there that it began to be used for daughters. The 2011 film Colombiana, whose Colombian-born heroine is called Cataleya, put the sound in front of a large American audience, and the name appeared in US records the following year. Cattaleya is one of several spellings competing for it, with the double t of the botanical form and an extra a.
Meaning
an orchid — the Cattleya genus, named after the horticulturist William Cattley
The name is the flower word, respelled. Cattley's surname is the root, so strictly the meaning runs back to an English family name rather than to any word for beauty or bloom.
How the name formed
- Cattley
- Cattleya
- Cataleya
- Cattaleya
Related forms: Cattleya · Cataleya · Katleya · Catleia
Pronouncing Cattaleya
kat-uh-LAY-uh
Four syllables, stress on the third. Spanish speakers often say kah-tah-LEH-yah, and some families place the stress at the front instead: KAT-uh-lay-uh. The double t changes nothing you can hear.
Nicknames for Cattaleya
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
- 2012
- Most girls named
- 2024165 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #1374reached in 2024
- Change vs 2024
- −12.1%145 in 2025, from 165
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.
Cattaleya in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Cattleya in Latin (botanical) — spelling variant
- Cataleya in Spanish — spelling variant
- Katleya in Spanish — spelling variant
- Catleia in Portuguese — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Cattaleyas among us
people named Cattaleya are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 11,085 born in 2025 was named Cattaleya
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Cattaleya
- #1478
- Cattaleya on the 2025 chart
- #131
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Cattaleya went to 145 girls in 2025, but Cataleya, Kataleya 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 — 1,347 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 11,085 for Cattaleya 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 Rayven test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Cattaleya's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Rayven climbed just as high around 1998, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Rayven's path sketches the road Cattaleya is walking now.
Cattaleya 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 Cattaleya is headed
Cattaleya is on a steep climb — if the curve holds, 2030 could see around 64% more babies given the name than today. Its history is short or jumpy, though, so read this as a sketch rather than a promise.
Low 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.
Cattaleya beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Cattaleya in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Grounded in a real word with a documented history — the orchid genus and its named botanist — rather than an invented sound.
- Works in both English and Spanish with only a small shift in vowels, which matters in bilingual families.
- Short forms come ready-made: Cat and Cata are both long-established nicknames in their own right.
- Rare enough that a child is unlikely to share it with a classmate, without being a name nobody has heard the sound of.
- The spelling is the real cost. Cattleya, Cataleya, Katleya and Cattaleya are all in use, and choosing this one means a lifetime of spelling it out at the pharmacy and correcting forms.
- The name reached a wide American audience through a film whose heroine is an assassin. Most people will not make the connection, but some will, and it is worth knowing before you decide.
- Its history as a given name is genuinely short — the wave is recent, so nearly everyone carrying it is a child. There are no older bearers to make it feel established yet.
- Stress placement varies between English and Spanish speakers, so expect to model the pronunciation you prefer more than once.
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What they receive
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Cattaleya
Feminine · #1478 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Cattaleyas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,000 people named Cattaleya are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Cattaleya?
- Cattaleya is one of 8 recorded spellings. Cataleya is the more common one — 1,314 births in 2025 against 145 for Cattaleya.
- How popular is the name Cattaleya in 2025?
- Cattaleya ranks #1478 among US girl names in 2025, with 145 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Cattaleya?
- About 1 in every 11,085 US girls born in 2025 was named Cattaleya — 145 in all.
- Will my child share the name Cattaleya with classmates?
- Cattaleya will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Cattaleya
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Wyatt#1478 · Nathalie#1478 · Verity#1478 · Hosanna#1478 · Atlas#1478 · Rivky#1484 · Miah#1484 · Dove#1484
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Cattaleya? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Cattaleya and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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