Hawaiian Name Finder

Hawaiian Volcano Names

Every Hawaiian island is a volcano, and every volcano has a Hawaiian name that describes it. Here are the names of the mountains, craters, and peaks with their meanings and how to say them.

Hawaiian volcano names Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, Kīlauea, and Haleakalā with meanings

How Hawaiian volcanoes get their names

Hawaiian place names describe. Mauna Kea is the white mountain because snow sits on it every winter. Mauna Loa is the long mountain because its slopes run for sixty miles. Kīlauea is spewing because it is. Haleakalā is the house of the sun because Māui climbed it to catch the sun in his snares. When Hawaiians did not know the origin of a name, they said so, and this list follows Pukui, Elbert, and Mookini’s Place Names of Hawaii in marking the names whose meanings are uncertain.

Several volcanoes are better known by later English names. Diamond Head is Lēʻahi, Punchbowl is Pūowaina, Koko Crater is Kohelepelepe, and the West Maui Mountains are Mauna Kahālāwai. The Hawaiian names have returned to maps and signage over the past thirty years, and the state renamed the submarine volcano Lōʻihi to Kamaʻehuakanaloa in 2021 after the Hawaiian Board on Geographic Names found the older name.

Hawaiian words for lava and volcanoes

WordMeaning
pelelava, eruption, and the goddess herself
ʻaʻārough, clinkery lava that is painful to walk on
pāhoehoesmooth, ropy lava, from the word for paddle
puʻuhill, cinder cone
maunamountain
luapit, crater
kīpukaan island of older land surrounded by newer lava
halehouse, used for craters where Pele is said to live
ahifire
kaisea, where the lava ends

Two of these words, ʻaʻā and pāhoehoe, are used by geologists worldwide for the two kinds of lava, which makes them the most widely spoken Hawaiian words after aloha.

Volcano names as baby names

Pele, Kīlauea, and Haleakalā are occasionally used as given names in Hawaiʻi, and Pele appears on the names meaning fire list. Names built on ahi (fire) and lama (torch), such as Keahi and Kalama, carry the same energy without naming the goddess directly. See also the names of the islands and Hawaiian town and beach names.

Questions people ask

What does Mauna Kea mean?

Mauna Kea means white mountain, from mauna (mountain) and kea (white), for the snow that covers its summit in winter. At 13,803 feet it is the highest point in Hawaiʻi and, measured from its base on the sea floor, the tallest mountain on Earth.

What does Kīlauea mean?

Kīlauea means spewing or much spreading, a description of its constant eruptions. It is the most active volcano on Earth and, in Hawaiian tradition, the home of the goddess Pele.

What is the Hawaiian name for Diamond Head?

Diamond Head is Lēʻahi, meaning brow of the ʻahi (tuna), for the shape of its ridge. British sailors in the 1820s named it Diamond Head after calcite crystals they took for diamonds.

What does Haleakalā mean?

Haleakalā means house of the sun. In legend the demigod Māui climbed it to snare the sun and make the days longer so his mother's kapa cloth could dry.