The Meaning And Humor Of Hawaiian Street Names

If you've been to Hawaii even once, you know that many of the Hawaiian-language street names are tongue-twisters so long that they barely fit on the street sign.

But behind the signs are amusing, provocative or interesting translations that can add zest to finding your way around Oahu or Maui.

Two well-researched new books, "Maui Street Names" and "Hawaiian Street Names" (which covers Oahu), provide tidbits about more than 5,000 streets and communities.

You could be driving on "pool seepage" street. Maybe walking along "smelly skin" street. Loitering along "love-making" boulevard. Sauntering down "idiot" avenue. Humming on "cheerful singing" street.

For streets named after people or gods, the books offer historical vignettes.

The Maui book also offers historical photos throughout and miscellany on every page. In reference to Mai'la Road in Hana, for instance, you learn that the banana is actually a giant herb. The Hana Highway, legendary among those prone to carsickness, follows an ancient foot trail along a mountainous rainforest.

On Uhu Street in Kahului you find out that the uhu fish not only changes color and sex as it matures, but each night creates a cocoon "sleeping bag" in which to rest.

Naughty street names draw great interest. The Oahu book even rated a paragraph in Playboy Magazine's After Dark column last fall. Author Rich Budnick says some literal translations are so risque in Western terms that "I couldn't get some of them on `Saturday Night Live'."

For Hawaiian expertise, Budnick worked with Duke Kalani Wise on Oahu and Hokulani Holt-Padilla on Maui.

Wise teaches a class on Oahu place names at the University of Hawaii. Holt-Padilla directs a Hawaiian language preschool on Maui and is a hula master.

The books detail the few street names that are in other languages. Take "Almosta Road." Spanish? Maybe Portuguese?

As with many other streets, the researchers went to inspect Almosta Road personally.

"It was this little private dirt road in Haiku on Maui," Budnick says. "I think it stands for `almost-a-road'."

The road books are available at many Hawaii bookstores or by mail from Aloha Press, P.O. Box 4183, Honolulu, HI 96812. Enclose $7 plus $1.50 postage for each book.