Cataleya is a modern name taken from the cattleya, a showy tropical orchid that botanists named after the English horticulturist William Cattley, so it means "orchid" or "cattleya orchid". The name became a given name after the 2011 film Colombiana, whose heroine is called Cataleya. It entered the US top 1000 in 2012, moved up from number 437 in 2015 to a peak of number 236 in 2024 and ranks number 238 among girls' names in 2025.