What does Poliʻahu mean in Hawaiian?
Poliʻahu is a Hawaiian girl name that means bosom of the snow, snow goddess of Mauna Kea. The name comes from poli (bosom) + ʻahu (cloak). It is pronounced poh-lee-AH-hoo, with 4 syllables. The stressed syllable is written in capitals.
Poliʻahu belongs with other Hawaiian names about mythology and mountain.
Poliʻahu
Poliʻahu is the snow goddess of Mauna Kea, and Pele's great rival. Where Pele is fire, Poliʻahu is the snow that caps the summit in winter, and the stories of their contests are stories about the mountain and the volcano.
Mauna Kea is the most sacred mountain in Hawaiian tradition. The name means the bosom of the snow.
Lake Waiau, near the summit, is associated with her, and the mountain's upper slopes remain a place where access is understood to carry obligations.
The words inside Poliʻahu
poli means bosom, heart.
ʻahu means cloak, covering and appears in 2 Hawaiian names, among them Kaʻahumanu.
How to pronounce Poliʻahu
Say every vowel. The vowels in Poliʻahu are o as in “go”, i as “ee”, a as in “father”, u as “oo”. The ʻokina (ʻ) in Poliʻahu is a short pause, like the break in “uh-oh”. See the full Hawaiian pronunciation guide.
Is Poliʻahu a boy or girl name?
Poliʻahu is used mainly as a girl's name, though Hawaiian itself has no grammatical gender.
How often Poliʻahu is given in the U.S.
No year from 1880 to 2023 saw five or more U.S. babies named Poliʻahu, and it never reaches five in the Hawaiʻi records either, so it is rare as a first name.
How well recorded is Poliʻahu?
Poliʻahu has its own entry among Wiktionary’s documented Hawaiian given names.