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Girl · Greek, through Spanish
Catalina
Say it: kah-tah-LEE-nah
Meaning
Spanish form of Katherine, a Greek name of uncertain meaning later linked with katharos 'pure'.
Uncertainseveral explanations, none settled.
Very common in the Spanish colonies.
Its wave through time
Rising now
In the United States
- 22,665 babies given this name since 1893
- At its height in 2020, about 1 in 1,000 girls
- 1,584 babies in 2020
Through the ages
- The High and Late Middle Ages1100 to 1450
- The Renaissance1400 to 1600
- The Colonial Americas1500 to 1800
- Victorian and Belle Époque1837 to 1914
- The Modern Age1880 to today
Used by
SpanishCatalanPortugueseBasqueMexicanCentral AmericanAndeanArgentineCaribbean
The family of the name
Other spellings: Cata
| Catalan | Caterina |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | Catarina |
| Basque | Katalin |
| English | Catherine |
| Italian | Caterina |
Famous bearers
- Catherine of Aragon, queen of England
- Catherine of Braganza, queen of England
- Catalina de Erauso, Basque soldier in Spanish America
Names worth a look
Where this comes from
- Royal and noble genealogies
- Medieval Spanish and Portuguese chronicles and charters
- Colonial records of the Americas
- Parish baptism registers
- National birth statistics of European countries source
- United States Social Security birth records, 1880 to today source
Meanings and histories are compiled from the study of names and their languages and checked by a second review.
Meanings and histories are drawn from the study of names and their languages, each with a confidence rating; popularity figures come from official birth records. Name histories are a living field: if you know of a correction, we would be glad to hear it.