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Hawaiian Name Finder

David · English boy’s name

David in Hawaiian is Kāwika

The form Hawaiian speakers have written since the 1800s, when D became K, V became W, and a vowel was added at the end.

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kah·VEE·kah

The gold syllable takes the stress.

What is David in Hawaiian?

David is Kāwika in Hawaiian, said kah-VEE-kah.

How David became Kāwika

Hawaiian is written with thirteen letters, so in David D became K, V became W, and a vowel was added at the end. A Hawaiian word cannot finish on a consonant, which is where the last vowel comes from.

Kāwika has a page of its own as a Hawaiian given name, with its popularity and the names it is usually paired with.

How to say Kāwika

Say it kah-VEE-kah, leaning on VEE, sounding every vowel: a as in “father”, i as “ee”. A vowel with a line over it, the kahakō, is held about twice as long. The pronunciation guide covers the whole system.

Kāwika or Davida?

Both forms are recorded, and they were made in different ways. Kāwika is the name respelled by ear: D had no Hawaiian counterpart and became K, V became W, and a vowel closed the name. It is the form Hawaiian families have used in speech for two centuries and the one you will meet as a given name today.

Davida is a transliteration that keeps the shape of the Hebrew and English original, and it turns up chiefly in biblical and scholarly contexts — in Hawaiian-language printings of the Bible, and in the name of the scholar David Malo, written Davida Malo. Neither is wrong. Kāwika is the living name; Davida is the bookish one.

Where you'll hear Kāwika

The best-known bearer is King David Kalākaua, who ruled the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi from 1874 until his death in 1891 and is remembered as the monarch who revived hula and Hawaiian language publishing after decades of suppression. He was widely addressed as Kāwika, and the well-known mele ʻŊleʻŊ "Kāwika" was composed in his honour.

The name stayed common through the twentieth century and is still given in Hawaiʻi today, often to honour a grandfather named David.

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

Does Kāwika mean David?

Yes. Kāwika is the Hawaiian form of David, arrived at by respelling the sounds — D became K, V became W, and a vowel was added at the end. It does not translate what David means in Hebrew ("beloved"); it reproduces how the name sounds.

Is it Kāwika or Davida?

Both are recorded. Kāwika is the everyday Hawaiian name and the one given to children. Davida is a closer transliteration used mainly in biblical and scholarly writing, as in the name of the scholar Davida Malo.

What is David in Hawaiian?

David is Kāwika in Hawaiian, pronounced kah-VEE-kah. It is the form used in Hawaiian-language records since the 1800s.

How do you pronounce Kāwika?

kah-VEE-kah, with the stress on VEE.

Why does Kāwika look so different from David?

Each sound Hawaiian lacks was swapped for the nearest one it has. In David, D became K, V became W, and a vowel was added at the end.

Is Kāwika a real Hawaiian name?

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

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