What does Kaʻala mean in Hawaiian?
Kaʻala is a Hawaiian unisex name that means the fragrance, the highest peak on Oʻahu. The name comes from ka (the) + ʻala (fragrance). It is pronounced kah-AH-lah, with 3 syllables. The stressed syllable is written in capitals.
Kaʻala belongs with other Hawaiian names about nature and mountain.
The words inside Kaʻala
ala means path, road and appears in 3 Hawaiian names, among them Keala, Kealaikahiki.
Kaʻala as a place name
Kaʻala is also a volcano on Oʻahu, where the name is read as the fragrance, or the ala, a kind of rough stone. The highest peak on Oʻahu at 4,025 feet. Place names and given names draw on the same words, so the meanings usually overlap but are not always identical. The page on what Kaʻala means has the full story, and Hawaiian volcano names covers the rest.
How to pronounce Kaʻala
Say every vowel. The vowels in Kaʻala are a as in “father”. The ʻokina (ʻ) in Kaʻala is a short pause, like the break in “uh-oh”. See the full Hawaiian pronunciation guide.
Is Kaʻala a boy or girl name?
Kaʻala is listed here as unisex. Of the 43 U.S. babies given it, 100% were girls and 0% boys.
How often Kaʻala is given in the U.S.
Social Security records show 43 U.S. babies named Kaʻala from 1982 to 2023, all girls, counted as Kaala because the records drop the ʻokina and kahakō. It appears in 7 of those 42 years. No year since 1996 has five or more babies of either sex given it. 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 Kaʻala?
Kaʻala is built from vocabulary recorded in Pukui–Elbert, the standard Hawaiian dictionary, but it has no entry among documented Hawaiian given names.