What does Hōkū mean in Hawaiian?
Hōkū is a Hawaiian unisex name that means star. The name comes from hōkū (star). It is pronounced HOH-koo, with 2 syllables. The stressed syllable is written in capitals.
Hōkū belongs with other Hawaiian names about star, sky and light.
Hōkūleʻa, the star of gladness
Hōkū is a star, and the most famous thing carrying the word is Hōkūleʻa — the double-hulled voyaging canoe launched in 1975 by the Polynesian Voyaging Society. In 1976 she sailed from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti without instruments, navigated by Mau Piailug of Satawal using stars, swells and birds, and settled an argument about whether Polynesian settlement had been deliberate rather than accidental.
Hōkūleʻa is also the Hawaiian name for the star Arcturus, which passes directly overhead at the latitude of Hawaiʻi and is therefore one of the key stars for finding the islands. The canoe completed a worldwide voyage between 2013 and 2017.
The words inside Hōkū
hōkū means star and appears in 5 Hawaiian names, among them Hōkūlani, Kahōkū, Hōkūao, Hōkūleʻa.
How to pronounce Hōkū
Say every vowel. The vowels in Hōkū are o as in “go”, u as “oo”. A vowel with a line over it (kahakō) is held slightly longer. See the full Hawaiian pronunciation guide.
Is Hōkū a boy or girl name?
Hōkū is unisex. Hawaiian has no grammatical gender, and most traditional names were given to any child.
How often Hōkū is given in the U.S.
Social Security records show 10 U.S. babies named Hōkū from 2013 to 2023, all boys, counted as Hoku because the records drop the ʻokina and kahakō. It appears in 2 of those 11 years. Its peak was 2013, with 5. The 2014 to 2023 total of 5 is fewer than in all earlier years combined. In the Hawaiʻi records it never reaches five births of one sex in a year, the level at which a name is listed.
How well recorded is Hōkū?
Hōkū is built from vocabulary recorded in Pukui–Elbert, the standard Hawaiian dictionary, but it has no entry among documented Hawaiian given names.