What does Kailua mean in Hawaiian?
Kailua is a Hawaiian unisex name that means two seas, two currents. The name comes from kai (sea) + lua (two). It is pronounced kye-LOO-ah, with 3 syllables. The stressed syllable is written in capitals.
Kailua belongs with other Hawaiian names about ocean.
The words inside Kailua
kai means sea, seawater and appears in 12 Hawaiian names, among them Kai, Kailani, Kaimana, ʻAukai.
lua means two, second and appears in 3 Hawaiian names, among them Kalua, Kapalua.
Kailua as a place name
Kailua is also a town on Oʻahu and Hawaiʻi, where the name is read as two seas, two currents. Place names and given names draw on the same words, so the meanings usually overlap but are not always identical. The page on what Kailua means has the full story, and Hawaiian town and beach names covers the rest.
How to pronounce Kailua
Say every vowel. The vowels in Kailua are a as in “father”, i as “ee”, u as “oo”. See the full Hawaiian pronunciation guide.
Is Kailua a boy or girl name?
Kailua is unisex. Hawaiian has no grammatical gender, and most traditional names were given to any child.
How often Kailua is given in the U.S.
No year from 1880 to 2023 saw five or more U.S. babies named Kailua, and it never reaches five in the Hawaiʻi records either, so it is rare as a first name.
How well recorded is Kailua?
Kailua is built from vocabulary recorded in Pukui–Elbert, the standard Hawaiian dictionary, but it has no entry among documented Hawaiian given names.