The Spanish term for the girl celebrating her fifteenth birthday is quinceañera.
The word comes from quince, meaning 15, and is feminine in Spanish. In everyday English, quinceañera also commonly names the entire birthday celebration, which can make the term seem to have two meanings.
The event is traditionally a public family milestone. In older descriptions, it represented a girl’s movement from childhood into young womanhood, although contemporary families may interpret it more broadly as a celebration of identity, family, faith, and community.
The masculine form quinceañero can refer to a boy’s fifteenth-birthday celebration in some modern usage, but quinceañera is the established and widely recognized term for the traditional girl’s celebration. The spelling includes the ñ, reflecting the Spanish word’s pronunciation and orthography.