Explore the Family Name Malia

The meaning of Malia

1. Italian: perhaps from the female personal name Malia, a short form of Amalia, based on the ancient Germanic element amal ‘capable, brave, eager’. 2. Irish: variant of Melia.

Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, © Oxford University Press, 2022.

How common is the last name Malia in the United States?

Based on the data from the Decennial U.S. Census, the surname Malia had a slight decrease in popularity between 2000 and 2010. In 2000, it was ranked as the 25,591st most common name, but by 2010, it dropped to the 28,100th spot, marking a change of approximately -9.8%. The count of individuals with this surname also decreased by nearly 6%, from 906 people in 2000 to 852 people in 2010. This resulted in the proportion per 100k people dropping by roughly 15%, from 0.34 in 2000 to 0.29 in 2010.

	2000	2010	Change
Rank	#25,591	#28,100	-9.8%
Count	906	852	-5.96%
Proportion per 100k	0.34	0.29	-14.71%

Race and Ethnicity of people with the last name Malia

The ethnicity breakdown for the surname Malia, according to the Decennial U.S. Census, reveals some shifts between 2000 and 2010. The majority of individuals with this surname identify as White, although there was a slight decrease of about 2% over the decade. The proportion identifying as Asian/Pacific Islander also had a minor drop. There was a significant increase in the percentage identifying as Hispanic, which jumped by over 50%. Meanwhile, the number of those identifying as Black rose from none in 2000 to about 1.41% in 2010. The data for those identifying with two or more races was suppressed for privacy reasons in 2010, while no one identified as American Indian and Alaskan Native in either year.

	2000	2010	Change
White	89.96%	88.15%	-2.01%
Hispanic	3.2%	4.81%	50.31%
Asian/Pacific Islander	4.75%	4.58%	-3.58%
Black	0%	1.41%	0%
Two or More Races	1.43%	0%	0%
American Indian and Alaskan Native	0%	0%	0%