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http://sephardicgen.com/MalkaFamilyWeb/Malka_family.htmlMalka is a very old Sephardic surname, transmitted in a hereditary manner since at least the early 1200s C.E. Because the surname was hereditary for so many generations there exist today numerous Malka families, which — though they may have once had a common ancestor — are now no longer closely related to each other.
To avoid confusion, we must start by distinguishing between the Malka Sephardic surname and the frequently used female first name Malka. They sound similar but are quite different. The female first name is of Hebrew origin and means queen in Hebrew-an appropriate name for a Jewish woman. However, the Malka Sephardic surname is of Aramaic origin and not Hebrew in etymology or meaning. In Aramaic, Malka means “the king” or "royal". This meaning was well known in the past and explains how it was used in older documents and the translated variants such as Rey, Ibn Rey, Ben Melec, etc. which were sometimes used interchangeably in legal documents in Spain. Because of its Aramaic etymology, the Malka surname is correctly spelled with a terminal aleph, not a heh as in the Malka female first name. In Aramaic the terminal aleph is equivalent to the Hebrew ha (the). Thus, in Aramaic, Malka is literally “the malk” (would be ha melekh in Hebrew). Unfortunately, in modern Israel the name is today frequently Hebraized and thus erroneously spelled with a terminal heh. (See Abraham Laredo. Les Noms des Juifs du Maroc, and others)