Malaina
Feminine · “Greek melaina”
Melancholy is black bile. The ancient medical system had four humours, and an excess of the black one made a person melancholic; melas is Greek for black, and it also gives melanin, melanoma and the name Melanie.
How old is the name Malaina?
Malaina first appears in US birth records in 1965 — 60 years ago. The typical Malaina alive today was born around 2006, making them about 19 years old. About 900 people named Malaina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Malaina most popular?
Malaina peaked in 2004, reaching #2927 nationally. Today it ranks #9457, 6,530 places below that high. See the whole 2004 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From melas to Malaina
The story of Malaina
Humoral medicine, systematised by Galen from Hippocratic material, held that health was a balance of four fluids: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Each had a temperament attached. Too much blood made a person sanguine, phlegm phlegmatic, yellow bile choleric, and black bile melancholic, from melas, black, and chole, bile. The system governed European medicine for fifteen hundred years and its vocabulary survives entirely intact in ordinary English, where sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholy, humor, temperament and good humor all descend from it. Black bile itself does not exist; nothing in the body corresponds to it. So English still describes personalities using the terminology of a fluid that was never there, and the name Melanie sits at the edge of the same word family.
Meaningscholars disagree
Greek melaina, black
Malaina is most likely an American respelling of Melaina or Malena, from Greek melaina, the feminine of melas, black or dark, which also gives Melanie. It may equally be a coinage on the Ma- and -aina elements. The same root gives melancholy, melanin and melanoma. The peak is 2004.
How the name formed
- melas
- melaina
- Malaina
Related forms: Melaina · Malena · Melanie
Pronouncing Malaina
mah-LAY-nah
Three syllables, stress on the second. Greek melaina is meh-LY-nah with a different middle vowel. Malena, the Spanish form, is said mah-LEH-nah.
Nicknames for Malaina
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
- 1965
- Most girls named
- 200755 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #2927reached in 2004
- Change vs 2024
- −16.7%10 in 2025, from 12
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.
Malaina in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Melaina in English — spelling variant
- Malena in Spanish — related form
- Melanie in English — related form
Malainas among us
people named Malaina are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 160,727 born in 2025 was named Malaina
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Malaina
- #9457
- Malaina on the 2025 chart
- #916
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Malaina went to 10 girls in 2025, but Malayna and Malaynah are the same name said out loud. Together the 3 spellings went to 44, which makes it the 916th most-given girls’ name of the year — 8,541 places above the chart.
- Malayna25
- Malaina10
- Malaynah9
About 1 girl in 36,529 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 160,727 for Malaina 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 Tram test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Malaina's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Tram climbed just as high around 1981, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Tram's path sketches the road Malaina is walking now.
Malaina 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
Malaina beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Malaina in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- Mala and Laina are both usable short forms.
- Three syllables with clear middle stress.
- The vowels are open and easy to say.
- Melaina and Malena are both commoner.
- The Greek root means black.
- Several spellings compete for the same sound.
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Malaina
Feminine · #9457 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Malainas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Malaina are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Malaina?
- Malaina is one of 3 recorded spellings. Malayna is the more common one — 25 births in 2025 against 10 for Malaina.
- How popular is the name Malaina in 2025?
- Malaina ranks #9457 among US girl names in 2025, with 10 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Malaina?
- About 1 in every 160,727 US girls born in 2025 was named Malaina — 10 in all.
- Will my child share the name Malaina with classmates?
- Malaina will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Malaina
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Leta#9457 · Inga#9457 · Delphia#9457 · Cammie#9457 · Lisandra#9457 · Amee#9457 · Venecia#9457 · Annetta#9457
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Malaina? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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