What is Matthew in Hawaiian?
Matthew is Makaio in Hawaiian, said mah-KYE-oh.
How Matthew became Makaio
Hawaiian is written with thirteen letters, so in Matthew T became K, 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.
Makaio 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 Makaio
Say it mah-KYE-oh, leaning on KYE, sounding every vowel: a as in “father”, i as “ee”, o as in “go”. The pronunciation guide covers the whole system.