What does hana mean in Hawaiian?
Hana is work — doing, making, activity of any kind. It is one of the most-used words in the language.
A second, much rarer sense is a bay or valley, and this is where the argument about Hanalei comes from: read as work it gives 'lei making', read as bay it gives 'crescent bay'. The work sense is far more common in the language, which is why many sources prefer it.
Hāna, with a long first vowel, is the town on the eastern end of Maui — a different word again.
Say it HAH-nah. Every vowel is pronounced, and the capitalized syllable takes the stress. The pronunciation guide covers the rules.
On this site hana is part of 2 names: 1 begin with it, 0 end with it, and 1 carry it elsewhere. They split evenly between girls and boys, and all of them sit in the group of Hawaiian names meaning earth.