What does Kanani mean in Hawaiian?
Kanani is a Hawaiian girl name that means the beauty. The name comes from ka (the) + nani (beauty). It is pronounced kah-NAH-nee, with 3 syllables. The stressed syllable is written in capitals.
Kanani belongs with other Hawaiian names about beauty.
Kanani and Nani
Kanani is nani, beauty, with the article ka in front of it. Nani on its own is beauty in general; Kanani is the beauty, one particular person. Both are recorded as Hawaiian given names, and so are the longer names that pair nani with another word: Leinani, the beautiful lei, Puanani, the beautiful flower, and Haunani, the beautiful dew.
The article is ka rather than ke because nani begins with n. Hawaiian uses ke before words beginning with k, e, a, or o, which is why the same pattern gives Kekoa and Keola but Kalani and Kanani.
The words inside Kanani
nani means beauty, beautiful, glorious and appears in 6 Hawaiian names, among them Nani, Puanani, Haunani, Leinani.
How to pronounce Kanani
Say every vowel. The vowels in Kanani are a as in “father”, i as “ee”. See the full Hawaiian pronunciation guide.
Is Kanani a boy or girl name?
Kanani is listed here as a girl's name. Of the 868 U.S. babies given it, 99% were girls and 1% boys.
How often Kanani is given in the U.S.
Social Security records show 868 U.S. babies named Kanani from 1964 to 2023 (863 girls, 5 boys). It appears in 54 of those 60 years. Its peak was 2000, with 31. The 2014 to 2023 total of 148 is fewer than in all earlier years combined. In Hawaiʻi itself, 231 babies born in the state were named Kanani from 1971 to 2021, with a peak of 18 in 1982. No year after 2006 reached five births of one sex there.
How well recorded is Kanani?
Kanani has its own entry among Wiktionary’s documented Hawaiian given names.