What does Kaʻiwa mean in Hawaiian?
Kaʻiwa is a Hawaiian unisex name that means the frigate bird. The name comes from ka (the) + ʻiwa (frigate bird). It is pronounced kah-EE-vah, with 2 syllables. The stressed syllable is written in capitals.
Kaʻiwa belongs with other Hawaiian names about bird and ocean.
The words inside Kaʻiwa
ʻiwa means frigate bird and appears in 2 Hawaiian names, among them Iwalani.
How to pronounce Kaʻiwa
Say every vowel. The vowels in Kaʻiwa are a as in “father”, i as “ee”. The ʻokina (ʻ) in Kaʻiwa is a short pause, like the break in “uh-oh”. A w after i or e is pronounced like a v. See the full Hawaiian pronunciation guide.
Is Kaʻiwa a boy or girl name?
Kaʻiwa is unisex. Hawaiian has no grammatical gender, and most traditional names were given to any child.
How often Kaʻiwa is given in the U.S.
No year from 1880 to 2023 saw five or more U.S. babies named Kaʻiwa, and it never reaches five in the Hawaiʻi records either, so it is rare as a first name.
How well recorded is Kaʻiwa?
Kaʻiwa is built from vocabulary recorded in Pukui–Elbert, the standard Hawaiian dictionary, but it has no entry among documented Hawaiian given names.