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Hawaiian Street Names: The Complete Guide to Oahu Street Names

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This is a good reference book, it is even endorsed by Samuel H. Elbert and he wrote the forward. Elbert is part of the team of Pukui/Elbert that produced Place Names of Hawaii, which I also recommend, even more highly. "Hawaiian Street Names" focuses on Oahu street names with thousands of entries, but it also has three pages with a total of about 70 Hawaii place names and a one page glossary with about 20 Hawaiian terms. "Hawaiian Street Names" includes many street names that are not included in "Place Names of Hawaii". For instance, Kuhio (there should be a line (kahako or macron) over the u and the o) was the one of the names of a famous prince and the name of a main street in Waikiki which is named for him. Kuhio is included in "Place Names of Hawaii", but curiously no translation is given; however "Hawaiian Street Names" provides a translation.

This book includes the 'okina and kahako in Hawaiian spelling like any good contemporary publication with Hawaiian words should, so that Hawaiian words that have them are spelled correctly. But as you may or may not know, the 'okina and the kahako are not so easy to render on the internet or on a computer unless you download a Hawaiian font, even still others may not see the 'okina and kahako correctly displayed on their computer if they have not downloaded the same font. The 'okina is a consonant and is represented by an upside down or inverted apostrophe. A kahako is a macron, a line over a vowel and indicates a long vowel. But I have digressed.

Please be aware that the original publication had 4,000 entries and 170 pages, but the updated edition has 5,000 entries and 192 pages. See my image so that you can see the difference in how the covers look. I have both editions and there is even a slight difference in width and height. I measure the updated version at 6" wide by 9" high and the original edition at 5.5" wide by 8.5" high. Because the updated version has a thousand more entries, I recommend the updated version. I assume Amazon is selling the updated version but I am not certain of this. If you are buying from a seller other that Amazon it may not be that easy to tell what you might get, especially if you are buying a used copy. If you are at all interested in the Hawaiian language or want to know what those Hawaiian street names mean, you will not be disappointed with this book.