What is May in Hawaiian?
May is Mei in Hawaiian, said MAY. 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 May became Mei
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 May Y became I, and the a became e.
Mei 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 Mei
Say it MAY. 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. The pronunciation guide covers the whole system.