What does Kaʻiulani mean in Hawaiian?
Kaʻiulani is a Hawaiian girl name that means the royal sacred one, the highest point of heaven. The name comes from ka (the) + ʻiu (sacred, lofty) + lani (heaven, royal). It is pronounced kah-ee-oo-LAH-nee, with 4 syllables. The stressed syllable is written in capitals.
Name of Princess Victoria Kaʻiulani (1875 to 1899), heir to the Hawaiian throne.
Kaʻiulani belongs with other Hawaiian names about royalty and heaven.
Princess Kaʻiulani
Kaʻiulani was the heir to the Hawaiian throne, niece of Liliʻuokalani, and was studying in England when the monarchy was overthrown in 1893. She was seventeen. She travelled to Washington and spoke publicly against annexation, to considerable effect on American opinion and none at all on the outcome.
She returned to Hawaiʻi and died in 1899 at the age of twenty-three. Her name means the royal sacred one, or the highest point of heaven.
The words inside Kaʻiulani
ʻiu means sacred, lofty.
lani means sky, heaven and appears in 53 Hawaiian names, among them Kailani, Kalani, Leilani, Lani.
How to pronounce Kaʻiulani
Say every vowel. The vowels in Kaʻiulani are a as in “father”, i as “ee”, u as “oo”. The ʻokina (ʻ) in Kaʻiulani is a short pause, like the break in “uh-oh”. See the full Hawaiian pronunciation guide.
Is Kaʻiulani a boy or girl name?
Kaʻiulani is listed here as a girl's name. Of the 434 U.S. babies given it, 100% were girls and 0% boys.
How often Kaʻiulani is given in the U.S.
Social Security records show 434 U.S. babies named Kaʻiulani from 1977 to 2023, all girls, counted as Kaiulani because the records drop the ʻokina and kahakō. It appears in 42 of those 47 years. Its peak was 2011, with 22. The 2014 to 2023 total of 129 is fewer than in all earlier years combined. In Hawaiʻi itself, 59 babies born in the state were named Kaʻiulani from 1978 to 2021, with a peak of 6 in 1978. 10 were born there from 2012 to 2021.
How well recorded is Kaʻiulani?
Kaʻiulani has its own entry among Wiktionary’s documented Hawaiian given names.