Jalea
Feminine · “jelly”
Latin gelare means to freeze, and it has produced a surprising amount of food vocabulary. A jelly is something that has set. Gelato is frozen. Gelatin is what does the setting. Congeal is to freeze together, and gelid is an unnecessarily grand word for cold. Jalea is the Spanish member of that family.
How old is the name Jalea?
Jalea first appears in US birth records in 1987 — 38 years ago. The typical Jalea alive today was born around 2007, making them about 18 years old. About 700 people named Jalea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Jalea most popular?
Jalea peaked in 2005, reaching #3876 nationally. Today it ranks #11932, 8,056 places below that high. See the whole 2005 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From gelare to Jalea
The story of Jalea
French gelee is a past participle — the frozen thing — and it entered English as jelly in the fourteenth century and Spanish as jalea. The whole family comes from one Latin verb about cold: gel, gelatin, congeal, gelato, and the geological word for permanently frozen ground. What is worth knowing is how ordinary the Spanish word is. Jalea de guayaba is guava jelly and sits on supermarket shelves, so in a Spanish-speaking household the name is a word said in the kitchen, which is the same position Rose and Daisy are in for English speakers and much less remarkable than it sounds.
Meaningscholars disagree
jelly, in Spanish
Spanish jalea is the ordinary word for jelly or preserve, from French gelee, from Latin gelare, to freeze. As a name it may be that word, or a modern American compound of the Ja- opening with the -lea ending. The two are indistinguishable in the record.
How the name formed
- gelare
- gelee
- jalea
Related forms: Jalea
Pronouncing Jalea
jah-LAY-uh
Three syllables, stress in the middle. In Spanish the j is a throat sound, ha-LEH-ah. Both are in American use, and which one a family uses generally follows which language the house runs in.
Nicknames for Jalea
Moderate
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
- 1987
- Most girls named
- 200738 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #3876reached in 2005
- Change vs 2024
- −36.4%7 in 2025, from 11
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.
Jalea in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Jalea in Spanish — related form
Jaleas among us
people named Jalea are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 229,610 born in 2025 was named Jalea
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Jalea
- #11932
- Jalea on the 2025 chart
- #882
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Jalea went to 7 girls in 2025, but Jaleah is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 78, which makes it the 882nd most-given girls’ name of the year — 11,050 places above the chart.
- Jaleah71
- Jalea7
About 1 girl in 20,606 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 229,610 for Jalea 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 Carmelle test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Jalea's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Carmelle climbed just as high around 1927, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Carmelle's path sketches the road Jalea is walking now.
Jalea sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Jalea beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Jalea in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Three open syllables with a clear central stress and no cluster anywhere.
- Lea works as a short form and is a full name in several languages.
- One of its two possible sources is a documented Latin word family.
- In Spanish it is an ordinary kitchen word, which is either charming or not depending on the household.
- The j is said two ways depending on the reader's first language.
- Jaleah, Jalia and Jaliyah are all in use and close enough to be confused.
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Jalea
Feminine · #11932 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Jaleas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 700 people named Jalea are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Jalea?
- Jalea is one of 2 recorded spellings. Jaleah is the more common one — 71 births in 2025 against 7 for Jalea.
- How popular is the name Jalea in 2025?
- Jalea ranks #11932 among US girl names in 2025, with 7 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Jalea?
- About 1 in every 229,610 US girls born in 2025 was named Jalea — 7 in all.
- Will my child share the name Jalea with classmates?
- Jalea will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Jalea
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Vina#11932 · Retta#11932 · Missouri#11932 · Iola#11932 · Eddie#11932 · Thomas#11932 · Louetta#11932 · Elvina#11932
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Jalea? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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