Maori Name Generator

How the Maori Name Generator works

How the Maori name generator works

Te reo Māori, like its Polynesian cousin Hawaiian, has ten consonants and five vowels, long vowels marked with a macron, and names that are words. Aroha is love, Moana ocean, Marama moon or light, Rangi sky, Tane the god of forests and man, Kahurangi precious or blue, Manaia the guardian figure of carving, Ataahua beautiful, Anahera angel, Awhina help, Huia the sacred bird, Tui the bird, Kiri skin or bark, Nikau the palm, Kauri the tree, Ariki chief, Kahu hawk or cloak, Tama son, Rua two or pit, Waimarie luck, Rangimarie peace, Roimata tears, Mihi greeting, Maia brave. Many are unisex and the generator follows usage. A second stock came with the missionaries in the 1820s and 1830s, English and Biblical names remade by Māori sounds, and these are now among the most Māori of names: William is Wiremu, James Hemi, David Rawiri, Thomas Tamati, Michael Mikaere, Matthew Matiu, Isaiah Ihaia, John Hoani or Hone, Abraham Aperahama, Stephen Tipene, Jacob Hakopa, Andrew Anaru, Paul Paora, Mary Mere or Meri, Victoria Wikitoria, Hannah Hana, Ann Ani, Queenie Kuini, Ellen Erana, Rebecca Ripeka, Louisa Ruiha, Sarah Hera. Traditional naming could commemorate an event or ancestor and a person might carry several names through life; that practice continues in some whānau and is not what a generator reproduces.

Surnames came with the colonial state and were fixed from the mid-nineteenth century, usually from an ancestor's given name, so Ngata, Parata from Bradley or Pratt, Pomare, Ratana, Kingi from King, Hohepa from Joseph, Henare from Henry, Winiata from Wynyard, Tamihana from Thompson, Paora from Paul, Karaka from Clark are mostly transliterated English and Biblical names or ancestral Māori ones, and a good many Māori carry a plain English surname from a Pākehā ancestor, Tapsell, Walker, Edwards. The article Te, the, precedes a number of names, Te Rangi, Te Whare, Te Kooti, Te Rauparaha, Te Kanawa, Te Heuheu, Te Aho, and marks a chiefly ancestor's name kept whole; the generator produces it as a separate word, which is how it is written. Modern Aotearoa names on the pattern the Local mixed option gives, an English first name, a Māori middle name from a grandparent, and either surname: Jack Wiremu Ngata, Sophie Aroha Smith, Liam Te Rangi, Maia Wilson.

The macron matters, Tāne and Tane, Māori and Maori, but the generator uses the plain forms most names are written in on rolls and lists, with the macron kept on Tāne where it is the god. For the Hawaiian cousins built on the same sounds, the Hawaiian page; for the settler stock beside these, the Australian and English pages.

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