Malia

Hawaiian form of Mary.

Sad to see a lot of misinformation here about my name. Malia is not the same as Melia. They are different names and are not pronounced the same in the Hawaiian phonetical alphabet. Malia means Mary, and nothing else. Any other interpretation is not Hawaiian. Any other spellings are also not interchangeable in Hawaiian culture. MAH-LEAH is the correct pronunciation. Very happy Obama has brought my very old family name back! Feel free to direct any other Hawaiian name questions here. If I can't answer it, my 90 year old Hawaiian grandmother who still speaks the language would be happy to help. Or contact Kamehameha Schools where the language is still taught instead of relying on these incorrect translations. [noted -ed]

In Kawena Pukui's dictionary, one of the most respected and comprehensive Hawaiian dictionaries, Malie is sometimes spelled Malia, depending on the island. A common fishing term, 'Malia,' is widely recognized to talk about glassy seas, especially in Kaua'i. While Malia is also a translation of Maria, that likely happened post contact and the original meaning being calm seas. [noted -ed]

The name Malia (pronounced mah-LEE-ah) is not indigenous to the Hawaiian language and is in fact as the entry states a translation of "Mary" or "Maria" using the available letters in the modern Hawaiian Alphabet which substitutes the letter "L" for the letter "R" (since the letter R is absent from the Hawaiian Alphabet.)

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It's a beautiful name and one that happens to be my wife's name (she's part Hawaiian and we were both born and raised here in the islands).

"Malia" is the Italian word for a witch's curse. It derives from the Latin word "malus," meaning "evil."

Malia is not the Hawaiian form of Mary. It means calm and peaceful.

Malia is Hawaiian for dolphin.

I don't know where BethanyE and sschilling99 were getting their information, but I'm sorry to say the Hawaiian meanings above are incorrect. Malia is the Hawaiian word for "maybe". (If you don't believe me, go ahead and check it in any Hawaiian-English dictionary. There are several online.) Sschilling99 was thinking of a slightly different word, "mālie", that means "peaceful". I'm not sure what BethanyE had in mind (maybe the word "mahimahi" for "dolphin fish"?), but "nai'a" is the Hawaiian word for "dolphin". The anonymous comment that it means "witch's curse" in Italian is correct, though I suspect that's not the intended meaning of the name, just an unfortunate side effect. For that reason, you probably wouldn't find anyone named Malia in Italy (unless her parents considered her a curse).