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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Neighborhood board hopes to use authentic place names

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Staff Writer

Through modern history, the names of many places in the Hawaiian Islands have changed as people settle here, take possession of property and develop land, giving areas such names as Soda Creek, Pacific Palisades and Pearl Harbor.

And although there has been a trend to choose new names that are more aligned to the history of a site, the Kahalu'u Neighborhood Board wants to go a step further. The board wants to form a Preservation of Hawaiian Heritage Committee to discuss the names of public places and facilities with regard to their appropriate cultural and traditional connections.

Pearl Harbor was once Pu'uloa, Waipahu was Waikele, and Dillingham Airfield was Kawaihapai.

The name changes tended to wipe out the history of an area and lead to misconceptions, said Emil Wolfgramm, a Kahalu'u Neighborhood Board member and a storyteller. Now, with Hawai'i's renewed awareness of the Hawaiian culture, is a good time to re-evaluate place names, Wolfgramm said.

"Now, at a time when we all preach a 'sense of place,' it would help to know which place we are at," said Wolfgramm who also finds it important to choose whose sense of place prevails.

"I say let the original voices speak, and you let them speak by putting the name in its proper place."

The board wants both the state and the city to get involved with the discussion and will submit a resolution to the City Council asking for support.

Naomi Losch, a University of Hawai'i associate professor of the Hawaiian language and literature who studied the misuse and disuse of Hawaiian place names 25 years ago for a master's degree, said there has been a turnaround in the attitudes about naming streets, subdivisions and buildings. Losch, department chairwoman for Hawaiian Indo-Pacific languages and literatures, said an examination of the issue would enrich people and perpetuate the history of an area, but changing names could lead to trouble.

"Some people get very sensitive because it's their place and they don't want somebody from outside of their place telling them what they should do," she said. "Yet it would be nice to have a logical discussion."

Waipahu is a good example of a misused name, Losch said. Waipahu was the name of a post office and sugar mill in Waikele, but the mill and the plantation changed the name of the community, she said. "Now it's back to Waikele and that's good."

Places like Soda Creek and Pacific Palisades have no relevancy to an area and are therefore inappropriate, Losch said. But even when there is a reason for a particular name, it can be detrimental to a place. Surf spots such as Pray for Sex and Velzyland obliterate the original name of a place, she said.

"Surfers have been the worst," Losch said. "They have the biggest impact on Hawaiian place names because they've named all the surf sites, beaches and breaks."

John Clark, author of "Hawai'i Place Names: Shore, Beaches and Surf Sites," said he is neutral about place names but he discovered while doing research for his book that the mo'olelo, the stories about an area, often determined the name of a place.

"In my mind you never truly know the meaning of a place name or the reason that place was named unless you know the actual mo'olelo, the story, that goes with that name," Clark said.

Wolfgramm said he would like to eventually see some change.

"The ultimate goal is to go back to correcting the mistakes," he said.

Reach Eloise Aguiar at eaguiar@honoluluadvertiser.com or 234-5266.