Maleah
Feminine
Maleah is built from sounds English already knows well — the soft opening of Malia, the whole of Leah sitting inside it — and it has been on American records for generations, first quietly, then far more widely. It belongs to a whole cluster of spellings that share its music, which means people hear it easily even when they have never seen it written.
How old is the name Maleah?
Maleah first appears in US birth records in 1956 — 69 years ago. The typical Maleah alive today was born around 2012, making them about 13 years old. About 9,300 people named Maleah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Maleah most popular?
Maleah peaked in 2009, reaching #594 nationally. Today it ranks #1211, 617 places below that high. See the whole 2009 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Maleah
Think of Maleah as a name assembled in English rather than inherited through it. Three vowels do almost all the work — a, ea, ah — and they give the name the same open ending that Amelia, Talia and Leah share, an ending that has never gone out of use in American naming. Inside it lives Leah, one of the oldest continuously used names in the West; beside it stands Malia, the Hawaiian form of Maria, and the two sounds seem to have met somewhere in the middle of the twentieth-century American ear. That the record cannot say exactly where is part of the story: this is a name that spread by being heard and then written down the way it sounded.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No meaning has been established for this spelling. What is documented is the company it keeps: Malia is the Hawaiian form of Maria, itself a form of the Hebrew Miriam, whose meaning scholars have never settled; Leah, the other name visible inside Maleah, is a Hebrew biblical name usually read as 'weary'. Maleah's own path to those names is not traceable in the record, so it is honest to say the meaning is simply not known.
Pronouncing Maleah
muh-LAY-uh
Two pronunciations are both in real use: muh-LAY-uh, which follows the spelling, and muh-LEE-uh, which follows Malia. Families tend to pick one and correct gently; neither is wrong.
Nicknames for Maleah
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
- 1956
- Most girls named
- 2009508 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #594reached in 2009
- Change vs 2024
- −4.6%187 in 2025, from 196
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.
Maleah in other languages
The same name elsewhere
- Malia in Hawaiian — related form
- Maliyah in English — spelling variant
- Maliah in English — spelling variant
- Maleia in English — spelling variant
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas, California, Florida.
Maleahs among us
people named Maleah are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 girl in 8,595 born in 2025 was named Maleah
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Spellings of Maleah
- #1211
- Maleah on the 2025 chart
- #753
- counting every spelling
The SSA counts spellings, not names. Maleah went to 187 girls in 2025, but Malea is the same name said out loud. Together the 2 spellings went to 208, which makes it the 753rd most-given girls’ name of the year — 458 places above the chart.
- Maleah187
- Malea21
About 1 girl in 7,727 born in 2025 was given one of these spellings — against 1 in 8,595 for Maleah 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 Kyle test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Maleah's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Kyle climbed just as high around 1951, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Kyle's path sketches the road Maleah is walking now.
Maleah 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
Where Maleah is headed
Maleah is easing off slowly — about 21% fewer babies a year by 2030 if the trend continues.
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.
Maleah beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Maleah in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US girls given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- The sound is widely familiar through Malia and Amelia, so people repeat it back correctly even on first hearing.
- Leah is contained whole inside it, giving a ready-made short form that works on a form or in a classroom.
- Common enough to be recognized, uncommon enough that a child will most likely be the only Maleah in her school.
- Spelled the way many English readers would guess from the sound: vowel by vowel, no silent letters.
- The two pronunciations, muh-LAY-uh and muh-LEE-uh, mean a lifetime of small corrections. Deciding which one you want before the birth certificate saves the most trouble.
- It sits in a crowded family of look-alike spellings — Malia, Maliah, Maliyah, Maleia — so expect it to be written wrong sometimes, even by people who have known her a while.
- No meaning has ever been established for this spelling. If a documented translation matters to you, that gap is worth weighing now rather than later.
- Its widest use came fairly recently and is easing off, so it may read as belonging to a particular stretch of years rather than to no era at all.
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What they receive
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Maleah
Feminine · #1211 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Maleahs are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 9,300 people named Maleah are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How do you spell Maleah?
- Maleah is the most-used spelling in US records — 187 of the 208 babies given the name in 2025. The others recorded are Malea.
- How popular is the name Maleah in 2025?
- Maleah ranks #1211 among US girl names in 2025, with 187 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Maleah?
- About 1 in every 8,595 US girls born in 2025 was named Maleah — 187 in all.
- Will my child share the name Maleah with classmates?
- Maleah will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Maleah
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Asiya#1211 · Cattleya#1211 · Jayda#1211 · Vida#1211 · Nathaly#1211 · Egypt#1211 · Tala#1211 · Anneliese#1207
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Maleah? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Maleah and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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