What is Lillian in Hawaiian?
Lillian is Liliana in Hawaiian, said lee-lee-AH-nah. The same form covers Lilian, because Hawaiian writes both spellings the same way.
How Lillian became Liliana
Hawaiian is written with thirteen letters, so in Lillian the doubled consonant was written once, a vowel was slipped between the consonants that ran together, and a vowel was added at the end. Hawaiian never writes a consonant twice, so the pair collapses to one. Hawaiian does not run two consonants together, and every syllable ends on a vowel. A Hawaiian word cannot finish on a consonant, which is where the last vowel comes from.
Liliana 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 Liliana
Say it lee-lee-AH-nah, leaning on AH, sounding every vowel: i as “ee”, a as in “father”. The pronunciation guide covers the whole system.