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Hawaiian Middle Names

80 Hawaiian names with meanings and pronunciation, the two marks that change what a name means, and a straight answer about who these names are for.

Start with the part that is usually skipped. Hawaiian names are not a decorative style; they belong to a living language and a living people, and Hawaiian was very nearly killed off — banned as a medium of instruction in schools after 1896 and down to a few hundred native speakers outside Niihau by the 1980s before the immersion movement began pulling it back. That history is why Kanaka Maoli families are protective of names, and why an outsider taking a Hawaiian name because it sounds pretty on a beach lands differently there than it does on a mainland baby-name list. If you have Hawaiian ancestry, family in the islands, or a genuine and long connection to a place, a Hawaiian middle name is yours to use and this page is for you. If you do not, the respectful version is to think of it the way you would think of borrowing anyone else's family name: ask what it means, get the spelling right, and stay away from the names of akua and aliʻi — the gods Kāne, Kū, Lono, Pele and Laka, and the names of specific chiefs and royals like Kaʻiulani and Liliʻuokalani, which belong to real people in a genealogy. Aloha is a concept, not a name, and it is not used as one. None of this is meant to scold; a few Hawaiian words have entered general American use fairly and are now simply names, and the list below flags where that is true.

Hawaii is also one of the few places whose middle-name habit was created by a specific law. Traditional Hawaiian naming had no surnames at all: a person had an inoa, one name, given by a dream (inoa pō), by an event at the birth, by an ancestor, or by a chant, and it might be a whole sentence describing a circumstance. In 1860 the Kingdom of Hawaii passed an Act to Regulate Names requiring every child to take the father's name as a surname and to receive a Christian given name, and that law stood until 1967. The result, over a century, was families with an English or biblical first name, an inherited surname, and the Hawaiian name preserved in the middle — which is precisely the pattern still in use today. So unlike almost every other culture on this site, the Hawaiian middle name is not an adaptation invented by the diaspora. It is what a hundred years of law and resistance produced, and putting the Hawaiian name in the middle slot is continuing something rather than inventing it. Our traditions guide covers the wider picture.

Two written marks carry meaning and both are frequently dropped, which is how names get mangled. The ʻokina is a consonant, a glottal stop, written as a single opening quote — it is a letter of the alphabet, not punctuation, and leaving it out changes the word. The kahakō is the macron over a vowel, and it lengthens the vowel, which also changes the word. The standard demonstration: pau is finished, paʻu is soot, paʻū is damp, and pāʻū is a skirt — four different words that all look like "pau" once you strip the marks. So Hōkū is not Hoku, Kēhau is not Kehau, and ʻIolana is not Iolana. Most American document systems will refuse both marks, and most Hawaiian families keep the correct form at home and accept the flattened one on the driver's licence. Do the same, but know which one is right, and write it correctly wherever you can.

The sound system is small and consistent, which makes long names much less frightening than they look. There are five vowels — a is "ah," e is "eh," i is "ee," o is "oh," u is "oo" — and eight consonants: h, k, l, m, n, p, w and the ʻokina. Every syllable ends in a vowel and every letter is pronounced, so Kamalani is ka-ma-LA-ni, four clean beats, and Leilani is lay-LA-nee. Stress normally falls on the second-to-last syllable, and a vowel wearing a kahakō pulls the stress to itself. The w is the only oddity: after i or e it usually sounds like a v, after u or o like a w, and after a it goes either way, which is why Hawaiʻi is said both ha-WAI-ee and ha-VAI-ee and both are right. Nothing here is silent and nothing is irregular.

Two families of names are worth separating. The first is descriptive Hawaiian words and phrases, built from a compact set of pieces that recombine endlessly: lani is heaven, sky, or royalty; kai is the sea; nani is beauty; pua is flower; noe is mist; ke and ka are "the." That is how you get Leilani, heavenly lei; Noelani, heavenly mist; Pualani, heavenly flower; Kealoha, the beloved; Kekoa, the warrior; Keanu, the cool breeze. Learn six pieces and half this page decodes itself. The second family is Hawaiian renderings of English and biblical names, made when missionaries fitted foreign names to an eight-consonant alphabet: Keoni is John, Kimo is James, Kawika is David, Malia and Mele are both Mary, Iokepa is Joseph, Makaio is Matthew, Lopaka is Robert, Palani is Frank, Alika is Alexander, Pekelo is Peter. These are the ideal bridge for a mixed family or for honoring a mainland relative — a grandfather named David becomes Kawika in the middle slot, which is the same name, said in Hawaiian.

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Pairing rule for Hawaiian middles: every one of these names ends in a vowel and most begin with one, which is the whole problem in miniature. Two Hawaiian elements in a row run together with nothing to break them — Kalea ʻAlohi has no seam at all — and a Hawaiian middle before a vowel-initial surname does the same: Ellie Kalani Adams smears at both ends. Let the consonants come from the English side. A first name ending in a consonant and a surname starting with one will frame a four- or five-beat Hawaiian middle beautifully: Grace Kamalani Porter, James Lanakila Brooks. And do not fear the length. These names look long because Hawaiian spells every syllable openly, but Kamalani is four light beats, no heavier in the mouth than Elizabeth, and the middle slot is the one place in a name where length costs nothing.

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Nearby origins: Japanese, which shares the islands' history and much of its diaspora, or all 24 origin lists. If the name is coming from a relative in the islands, start with honoring family. By style, these sit with nature and celestial middles; the method is in the guide.