What does Pualei mean in Hawaiian?
Pualei is a Hawaiian girl name that means flower lei. The name comes from pua (flower) + lei (garland). It is pronounced poo-ah-LAY, with 3 syllables. The stressed syllable is written in capitals.
Pualei belongs with other Hawaiian names about flower.
Flowers and lei
Pualei is pua (flower, and by extension a child or descendant) and lei (garland, and a beloved child). Both words do double duty in Hawaiian names, so the name is a flower lei on the surface and a cherished child underneath.
It is a short, two-word name of a very common type, and it sits alongside Leipua with the same words reversed. The order changes the emphasis: Pualei is a lei of flowers, Leipua a flower lei.
The words inside Pualei
pua means flower, blossom and appears in 10 Hawaiian names, among them Kapua, Pua, Pualani, Puanani.
lei means garland, wreath and appears in 18 Hawaiian names, among them Leilani, Kalei, Leialoha, Hanalei.
How to pronounce Pualei
Say every vowel. The vowels in Pualei are u as “oo”, a as in “father”, e as in “bet”, i as “ee”. See the full Hawaiian pronunciation guide.
Is Pualei a boy or girl name?
Pualei is used mainly as a girl's name, though Hawaiian itself has no grammatical gender.
How often Pualei is given in the U.S.
No year from 1880 to 2023 saw five or more U.S. babies named Pualei, and it never reaches five in the Hawaiʻi records either, so it is rare as a first name.
How well recorded is Pualei?
Pualei is built from vocabulary recorded in Pukui–Elbert, the standard Hawaiian dictionary, but it has no entry among documented Hawaiian given names.