Message: "First name OKALANI"

First name OKALANI

by Andy ;—) (guest)

8/25/2010, 8:38 AM

I met a girl of seven called OKALANI, and she claimed it was American (I suppose native American or Hawaiian) and meant "Blue Skies". On a website I found: "Hawaiian, From Heaven".
Any experts around?

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- BellamynSora +3

8/25/2010, 9:19 AM

http://www.alohafriendsluau.com/names_traditional.html has a listing for Okalani which confirms the meaning "From Heaven."

I know that Lani means "Heaven" in Hawaiian and it is used as an element in many names. I could not confirm the meaning of Oka through my own research, however. The meanings I found for Oka (as a word) are "crumb, grounds, remnents." For 'Oka I found the meaning "oak (tree/wood.)" To find those meanings I used http://wehewehe.org/ . While the dictionary listed Lani as a name element it did not list Oka or 'Oka as one.

I'm not an expert but maybe this will help you.

- ClaudiaS +2

8/25/2010, 12:44 PM

A little research on the same site reveals that O means "of" and KA is the definite article "the." As in any language, the use of articles is idiomatic--we don't say "the heaven" in English, but this is usual in Hawaiian. So O KA LANI would apparently mean "of (the) heaven."

This message was edited 8/25/2010, 12:47 PM

- BellamynSora +1

8/25/2010, 2:31 PM

Thanks for adding that! I hadn't thought of breaking it down like that. Makes sense, though.

- Andy :—) (guest)

8/25/2010, 3:04 PM

Thanks to both of you!

I checked the website you are referring to, which was very interesting. Still I would like to find out more about the cultural background of Hawaiian naming. Does anyone have a link for me?

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