Praised, or caressed
Mili is to caress or handle gently, and lani is the heavens or chiefly rank. Together they give a sense of being tended or held in esteem — the name is usually rendered as exalted or praised.
The plateau it sits on was pineapple land for most of the twentieth century.
A designed town
Mililani was laid out from 1968 by the Castle & Cooke company, and it was among the earliest large master-planned communities in Hawaiʻi. It remains one of the state's most populous places outside Honolulu proper.