What is Philip in Hawaiian?
Philip is Pilipo in Hawaiian, said pee-LEE-poh.
How Philip became Pilipo
Hawaiian is written with thirteen letters, so in Philip a vowel was slipped between the consonants that ran together, and a vowel was added at the end. 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.
Pilipo as a Hawaiian name
Pilipo is not only a borrowed spelling. It reads as Hawaiian in its own right, meaning “night closeness”, and it is given as a boy's name in Hawaiʻi today. Its own page has the full meaning, the word it is built from, and names that go with it.
How to say Pilipo
Say it pee-LEE-poh, leaning on LEE, sounding every vowel: i as “ee”, o as in “go”. The pronunciation guide covers the whole system.