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.