Hawaiian4 syllablesBoys and girls
Meaning: famous, celebrated, renowned.
Kaulana
| Origin | Hawaiian — an adjective used directly as a name, with no article attached |
|---|---|
| Meaning | Famous, celebrated, renowned. A second dictionary entry, kaulana as resting place or to rest, is treated as a separate word |
| Pronunciation | kow-LAH-nah. The first syllable is the vowel pair au, said like the English cow |
| Popularity | Outside the current U.S. top 100. A Hawaii name in practice, common enough in the islands to raise no eyebrows and almost unseen elsewhere |
| Variants | None. Unlike most Hawaiian names of this length it is one word rather than a phrase, so there is nothing to respell |
| Nicknames | None traditional. Lana on its own reads as a woman's name in English, which is why most bearers keep the full form |
| In song | Kaulana Nā Pua, 1893, one of the most widely sung Hawaiian protest songs |
History & meaning
Kaulana is not built from an article and a noun the way most of the Hawaiian names on this site are; it is a single adjective, famous, celebrated, renowned, handed over as a name without alteration. The dictionary does list a second kaulana, a resting place or the act of resting, which is usually explained as kau, to place or alight, with lana, to float, and which survives in Kaulana Mahina, the Hawaiian moon calendar. The two are treated as different words. Parents are naming for the first.
The word's weight in Hawaii comes from a song. In 1893, after the overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani, members of the Royal Hawaiian Band were told to sign an oath of loyalty to the provisional government or lose their pay. They refused, saying they would sooner eat stones than swallow that government's money, and Ellen Wright Prendergast wrote Kaulana Nā Pua, "famous are the flowers", for them. It is also known as Mele ʻAi Pōhaku, the stone-eating song. It has been sung continuously ever since and is one of the pieces of Hawaiian music every child in the islands learns. Anyone who gives the name in Hawaii is understood to be aware of that.
Why parents choose it
English does not really have a usable name meaning famous. Clarence and Roderick get near it through Latin and Germanic roots, but by the time they reach us the meaning is buried; this one says it in plain vocabulary. It is a large claim to put on a child, which is presumably why it stays modest in numbers, and why it is often chosen with the song in mind rather than the dictionary.
Middle names for Kaulana
Four rolling syllables need a middle with a hard stop at the end: Kaulana James, Kaulana Reid, Kaulana Mark, Kaulana Blake. It also sits well in the middle position after a shorter English first name. Test any combination out loud, as the middle names guide recommends.
Famous Kaulanas
No celebrity carries this one, and the honest answer is that its fame is the song rather than a person. That is unusual and rather fitting for a word meaning famous: in Hawaii the name arrives already attached to 1893, the band that would not sign, and a melody most people in the room can join in with.
Consider instead
Alakaʻi means to lead or to guide and makes a smaller claim. Kekoa, the warrior, is the standard three-syllable alternative. Hōkū reaches for the same brightness in one short word, star. See the full Hawaiian names page, or the K names page, for others.