What does ʻIolani mean in Hawaiian?
ʻIolani is a Hawaiian unisex name that means royal hawk, hawk of heaven. The name comes from ʻio (hawk) + lani (heaven, royal). It is pronounced ee-oh-LAH-nee, with 4 syllables. The stressed syllable is written in capitals.
ʻIolani Palace in Honolulu was the royal residence of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
ʻIolani belongs with other Hawaiian names about bird, royalty and sky.
The words inside ʻIolani
ʻio means Hawaiian hawk and appears in 2 Hawaiian names, among them ʻIolana.
lani means sky, heaven and appears in 53 Hawaiian names, among them Kailani, Kalani, Leilani, Lani.
How to pronounce ʻIolani
Say every vowel. The vowels in ʻIolani are i as “ee”, o as in “go”, a as in “father”. The ʻokina (ʻ) in ʻIolani is a short pause, like the break in “uh-oh”. See the full Hawaiian pronunciation guide.
Is ʻIolani a boy or girl name?
ʻIolani is listed here as unisex. Of the 91 U.S. babies given it, 100% were girls and 0% boys.
How often ʻIolani is given in the U.S.
Social Security records show 91 U.S. babies named ʻIolani from 2001 to 2023, all girls, counted as Iolani because the records drop the ʻokina and kahakō. It appears in 13 of those 23 years. Its peak was 2013, with 11. The 2014 to 2023 total of 30 is fewer than in all earlier years combined. In Hawaiʻi itself, 5 babies born in the state were named ʻIolani from 2001 to 2021, with a peak of 5 in 2001. No year after 2001 reached five births of one sex there. It is listed here as unisex, but every recorded U.S. birth has been a girl.
How well recorded is ʻIolani?
ʻIolani is built from vocabulary recorded in Pukui–Elbert, the standard Hawaiian dictionary, but it has no entry among documented Hawaiian given names.