Your Name in Hawaiian

How to get a Hawaiian name

There are three ways, and they give you quite different kinds of name.

1. Translate the name you already have. Type it into the translator above. 164 English names have a Hawaiian form that families have used since the 1800s, such as Malia for Mary and Keoni for John. This keeps your own name and changes only its sounds, so the meaning does not carry over.
2. Choose a name for its meaning. Search the name finder for a quality you care about, such as strength, the sea or love, and read how each name breaks into its words, or let the Hawaiian name generator pick six real names at random. This is how most people who are not Hawaiian choose one. Check whether a name is documented or marked as a modern combination before you settle on it.
3. Be given one. Traditionally a Hawaiian name was not picked from a list. It was given by parents or elders, and some names, called inoa pō, were understood to arrive in a dream. If you have Hawaiian family, asking them is the traditional route. The guide to Hawaiian naming traditions explains how names were chosen and what the customs ask of anyone taking one.

How English names became Hawaiian

When missionaries printed the first Hawaiian alphabet in 1826 they fixed it at thirteen letters, the five vowels and h, k, l, m, n, p, w, plus the ʻokina. Every Bible name and every settler’s name had to be written with those letters, and Hawaiians did it by ear. The sounds Hawaiian lacks were swapped for the nearest ones it has. B, F, and V became P or W. D, G, S, T, and Z became K. R became L. J became I. Consonants that ran together were separated with a vowel, and every name was given a vowel ending, because a Hawaiian word cannot end on a consonant.

The results are the names in the tables below. Mary became Malia, John became Keoni or Ioane, David became Kāwika, Robert became Lopaka, and Elizabeth became ʻElikapeka. These are not translations of meaning. Malia does not mean the same thing as Mary. They are the same name pronounced in a different sound system, and after two centuries of use in Hawaiian churches, schools, and families they are Hawaiian names in their own right. Many appear on the girl names and boy names lists with their own pages.

What the translator does with a name it does not know

For a name with no recorded Hawaiian form, the tool applies the same sound rules the missionaries’ students used. It is the process behind every name in the table, so the result is plausible Hawaiian spelling, but it is a guess about pronunciation rather than a name anyone has carried. If your name has a meaning you care about, a better path is to choose a Hawaiian name with that meaning. Search the name finder by meaning, for instance grace, light, or strength.