What does moana mean in Hawaiian?
Moana is the ocean, the deep open sea beyond the reef, as distinct from kai, the sea near shore. The 2016 Disney film made it one of the best known Polynesian words. Moana is a unisex name across Polynesia, and it forms Moanalani (heavenly ocean), Kamoana (the ocean), and Moananui (the great ocean, which is also the Hawaiian name for the Pacific).
Say it moh-AH-nah. Every vowel is pronounced, and the capitalized syllable takes the stress. The pronunciation guide covers the rules.
On this site moana is part of 2 names: 0 begin with it, 1 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 ocean.