What does Lālani mean in Hawaiian?
Lālani is a Hawaiian girl name that means row, rank, line; also read as heavenly lei. The name comes from lālani (row, line). It is pronounced lah-LAH-nee, with 3 syllables. The stressed syllable is written in capitals.
Lālani belongs with other Hawaiian names about sun, light, heaven and sky.
Why sources disagree about Lālani
Look Lālani up in three places and you will get three answers. Here is each reading and where it comes from.
- “row, rank, line”
- “heavenly lei, royal child”
- “a Gujarati surname”
Which one to use. Three different things share this spelling. As a Hawaiian word lālani means a row or line; as a given name it is usually intended in the "heavenly" sense; and as a surname it is South Asian and has no Hawaiian connection at all.
The words inside Lālani
lālani means row, rank, line.
How to pronounce Lālani
Say every vowel. The vowels in Lālani are a as in “father”, i as “ee”. A vowel with a line over it (kahakō) is held slightly longer. See the full Hawaiian pronunciation guide.
Is Lālani a boy or girl name?
Lālani is listed here as a girl's name. Of the 326 U.S. babies given it, 100% were girls and 0% boys.
How often Lālani is given in the U.S.
Social Security records show 326 U.S. babies named Lālani from 1951 to 2023, all girls, counted as Lalani because the records drop the ʻokina and kahakō. It appears in 31 of those 73 years. Its peak came in 2021, with 22, and 150 were born from 2014 to 2023. 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 Lālani?
Lālani is built from vocabulary recorded in Pukui–Elbert, the standard Hawaiian dictionary, but it has no entry among documented Hawaiian given names.