The Story Behind "Ems is Paahana"

“Ems is Paahana” – What does that mean? Have I ever told you the story?

In my mixed family of many ethnicities including Hawaiian, neither me nor any of my siblings, father, aunts and uncles have Hawaiian names. Growing up - I never really thought about it much until I went to Kamehameha School’s Explorations in 5th grade.

At Explorations one of the activities was to get a Hawaiian name if you didn’t already have one. The way they did it for me was to look up the meaning of Emily and then look up a word in Hawaiian that had the same meaning. Emily in Latin means industrious, striving, hardworking, etc. One Hawaiian word for that is “paahana” and so that became my translated Hawaiian name.

So my title “Ems is Paahana” literally means Emily is busy working or striving.

I think that sums up my life and personality pretty well. How neat that names have meaning in all languages when you dig deep enough.