Entry № 1799 · Latin origin

Cataleya Cataleya — Meaning, Origin & Baby Name Popularity

/ kah-tah-LAY-ah /
Gender
Girl
Origin
Latin
Meaning
"Cattleya orchid (Colombia's national flower; Zoe Saldana in Colombiana)"
Syllables
3
First recorded
Modern (Spanish)

A name that means "cattleya orchid (colombia's national flower; zoe saldana in colombiana)".

Cataleya is the Hispanic-American spelling of Cattleya — the genus name of the showy tropical orchids native to Central and South America, named in 1824 in honor of British horticulturist William Cattley. Colombiana (2011) — Olivier Megaton's action film starring Zoe Saldana as Cataleya Restrepo, a Colombian assassin avenging her parents' murder; the film became the surprise hit of late summer 2011 and is widely credited as the proximate cause of the name's American baby-naming surge from 2012 onward — a clear case of TV/film influence in US naming registries; produced by Luc Besson; grossed $59 million worldwide. Cataleya Hernandez — American gymnast.

and modern American film.

Cattleya orchid (Colombia's national flower; Zoe Saldana in Colombiana) — a Latin name.

The name in its native script.

Cataleya
Transliteration
Cataleya
Pronunciation
/ kɑːtəˈleɪ.ə /
Root
Grammatical form

Where Cataleya stands.

Cataleya does not currently appear in the US Social Security Administration's top 1,000 girls' names, so we don't publish a US rank or birth count for it. That says nothing about the name's standing elsewhere in the world — only that it sits outside the ranked US data we rely on.

Cataleyas before her.

Real people

In fiction
Cataleya Restrepo
Colombiana.
2011

Names connected to Cataleya.

The number behind Cataleya.

5

The Seeker

In Pythagorean numerology the letters of Cataleya reduce to 5, The Seeker. This is a traditional interpretive system, not a factual claim about the name.