Ann · English girl’s name

Ann in Hawaiian is ʻAna

The form Hawaiian speakers have written since the 1800s, when the doubled consonant was written once, and a vowel was added at the end.

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AH·nah

The gold syllable takes the stress.

What is Ann in Hawaiian?

Ann is ʻAna in Hawaiian, said AH-nah. The same form covers Anna and Anne, because Hawaiian writes all of these spellings the same way.

How Ann became ʻAna

Hawaiian is written with thirteen letters, so in Ann the doubled consonant was written once, and a vowel was added at the end. Hawaiian never writes a consonant twice, so the pair collapses to one. A Hawaiian word cannot finish on a consonant, which is where the last vowel comes from. The ʻokina at the front is a consonant in Hawaiian, the catch in the voice before the first vowel.

Not to be confused with ana, a different Hawaiian word meaning “cave”.

How to say ʻAna

Say it AH-nah, leaning on AH, sounding every vowel: a as in “father”. The ʻokina (ʻ) is a catch in the voice, the break in the middle of “uh-oh”. The pronunciation guide covers the whole system.

Where Ann comes from

Ann is the plainest English spelling of Hannah, a Hebrew name meaning grace or favour, which reached English through the Greek and Latin Anna and the French Anne. Tradition gives the name to the mother of Mary, and that made it common across Christian Europe.

Hawaiian writes all three spellings as ʻAna, with an ʻokina before the first vowel.

Sources the Pukui and Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary, Place Names of Hawaii, Nānā i ke Kumu, wehewehe.org, Wiktionary's Hawaiian given names and U.S. Social Security baby-name records. How this site is compiled · Send a correction

Questions people ask

What is Ann in Hawaiian?

Ann is ʻAna in Hawaiian, pronounced AH-nah. It is the form used in Hawaiian-language records since the 1800s, and it covers Anna and Anne as well.

How do you pronounce ʻAna?

AH-nah, with the stress on AH.

Why does ʻAna look so different from Ann?

Each sound Hawaiian lacks was swapped for the nearest one it has. In Ann, the doubled consonant was written once, and a vowel was added at the end.

Is ʻAna a real Hawaiian name?

Yes, as a borrowed name. Hawaiian families have used ʻAna since the 1800s, but it is Ann respelled, not a name built from Hawaiian words.

All 164 English names in Hawaiian · Hawaiian girl's names