What does manō mean in Hawaiian?
Manō is the shark. For many Hawaiian families the shark is an ʻaumakua, a guardian ancestor in animal form, and particular sharks were known, named and fed rather than feared.
The word carries authority as well as the animal. A manō is also a person of force and standing, and the sense runs through place names and chiefly epithets. That double reading is why the shark appears so often in genealogy and story: it stands for a protector with teeth.
Hawaiʻi has about forty shark species in its waters. The one most often meant in older accounts is the tiger shark, manō niuhi, which was hunted ceremonially and whose teeth were set into weapons.
Say it mah-NOH. Every vowel is pronounced, and the capitalized syllable takes the stress. A vowel with a line over it (kahakō) is held a little longer. The pronunciation guide covers the rules.
On this site manō is part of 1 names: 0 begin with it, 0 end with it, and 1 carry it elsewhere. Most are boy names, and all of them sit in the group of Hawaiian names meaning ocean.