Malaia
Malaia was given to 28 girls in 2025, #4,832 among girls’ names; 422 Americans have been recorded with it since 1997 (Social Security Administration, published May 2026).
Girls and boys together; gaps are years SSA did not record (fewer than 5 births).
Births of Malaia by year: SSA national baby-name file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
How popular is Malaia?
#4,832 among girls’ names, 2025
Malaia rose from #10,594 in 2015 to #4,832 in 2025 among girls’ names; its share of girls born rose from 5.6 to 17.4 per million.
40 babies in 2021, the peak
Malaia peaked in 2021, when 40 girls were given it, #3,776 among girls’ names. The 28 births of 2025 are 70% of that peak.
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 28 | #4,832 | 17.4 |
| 2024 | 26 | #5,096 | 16.0 |
| 2023 | 34 | #4,245 | 21.2 |
| 2022 | 24 | #5,415 | 14.6 |
| 2021 | 40 | #3,776 | 24.4 |
| 2020 | 35 | #4,053 | 21.7 |
| 2019 | 30 | #4,615 | 17.9 |
| 2018 | 17 | #6,985 | 10.0 |
| 2017 | 8 | #12,337 | 4.6 |
| 2016 | 7 | #13,814 | 4.0 |
Every recorded year (23)
| Year | Births | Rank | Per million girls |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 10 | #10,594 | 5.6 |
| 2014 | 14 | #8,335 | 7.8 |
| 2013 | 6 | #15,811 | 3.4 |
| 2012 | 14 | #8,473 | 7.9 |
| 2011 | 24 | #5,658 | 13.6 |
| 2010 | 17 | #7,395 | 9.6 |
| 2009 | 16 | #7,933 | 8.7 |
| 2008 | 13 | #9,312 | 6.9 |
| 2007 | 24 | #5,829 | 12.5 |
| 2006 | 18 | #7,039 | 9.5 |
| 2004 | 7 | #13,651 | 3.8 |
| 2003 | 5 | #17,361 | 2.7 |
| 1997 | 5 | #15,177 | 2.9 |
Ranks and shares: girls’ names in each year’s SSA file; share of all girls SSA recorded that year.
Is Malaia a boy’s or a girl’s name?
Malaia has been recorded only for girls: SSA lists no boys with the name in 23 years of records (it lists a name only in years with 5 or more babies of a sex).
Girls and boys named Malaia: the SSA national file counts each sex separately.
How many people are named Malaia, and how old are they?
An estimated 419 Americans named Malaia and born in the U.S. are alive in 2026 (99% of everyone recorded); the median is 7 years old and half are between 4 and 15. An estimate from SSA’s births and life tables, not a count.
The 2020 Census counted 238 people named Malaia (237 women and girls, 1 man or boy). SSA’s births carried forward to Census day, April 1, 2020, predict 242 born in the U.S. The Census count is 2% below that prediction.
Living estimate: SSA births carried forward with the survival rates in SSA’s cohort life tables (2024 Trustees Report) for each birth year and sex. How the estimate is made. Count: Census Bureau, first names in the 2020 Census (released April 14, 2026; names reported 100 or more times, with the Bureau’s disclosure-avoidance adjustment).
How common is the spelling Malaia?
Malaia is a less common spelling of Malaya: SSA has recorded 422 Malaia and 8,467 Malaya since 1880.
Of these 8 names spelled alike, given to 59,554 babies since 1880, Malaia is the eighth most given (<1% of them). In 2025 it was given to 28 of their 1,718 babies (1.6%), the seventh most given that year.
Spelled alike: names in the SSA national file with the same pattern of letters and sounds and at most two letters apart, and Wiktionary’s listed forms; births since 1880 and in 2025, and each name’s peak year, from the SSA national file, published May 8, 2026. Some are separate names, not spellings of one.
Names that rose and fell in the same decades as Malaia
Names whose births rose and fell across the same decades, measured on each decade’s share of births.
Similar histories: each decade’s share of births, from the SSA national file, 1880-2025, published May 8, 2026. SSA’s notes on the data.
More about Malaia and names like it
- Compare Malaia and MalayaBirths, ranks, peak and the living estimate side by side.
- The most given names of the 2020sMalaia peaked in 2021.
- Texas’s most given namesThe state where SSA recorded the most babies named Malaia since 1910.
- The top names of 2021The year the most babies were named Malaia.
- The names of Generation AlphaMost people named Malaia alive today were born 2013-2025.
- Names starting with MMost given first.