What is David in Hawaiian?
David is Kāwika in Hawaiian, said kah-VEE-kah. This is a recorded form rather than an invented one: it is how the name was written in Hawaiian-language newspapers, church records, and family Bibles from the 1800s onward.
How David became Kāwika
When the first Hawaiian alphabet was printed in 1826 it was fixed at thirteen letters, the five vowels and h, k, l, m, n, p, w, plus the ʻokina. Every foreign name had to be written with those letters and no others, so Hawaiians wrote what they heard, swapping each missing sound for the nearest one the language had.
In David D became K, V became W, and 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. Hawaiian vowels never change value: a is “ah”, e is “eh”, i is “ee”, o is “oh”, u is “oo”. Every vowel is sounded, so there are as many syllables as there are vowels or vowel pairs. A vowel with a line over it, the kahakō, is held about twice as long. The pronunciation guide covers the whole system.