Pakeha (European)/Maori Transliterations

This list was developed by Christine Clement to help fellow genealogists with indexing. Some Maori appear in indexes under their Maori name and then in other indexes under their European or Pakeha version or a combination of both. Names have been collected from official NZ Government sources, books, (including The Bible), headstones, death notices and from the families concerned.

Some names have both a pre-contact meaning and a transliteration usage. As an example - Matiu was a female name pre-contact but is more commonly known as the transliteration for Matthew. Some of these spellings came from early Catholic records where the priests not only used the Church Latin forms of names but also the phonetic spelling of Māori name. The spellings are meant as a guide only.

The NZSG Maori Interest Group has a great deal of information to help research Maori ancestry.

* The 1847 Māori Liturgical Calendar and Māori Christian Names by Mervyn Duffy, Lecturer in Theology, Good Shepherd College - Te Hepara Pai trading asTe Kupenga – Catholic Theological College - 2002. Some of the Saint names are transliterations of the Latin words.
** Noted in a café in Nelson 2022

As this is a long list you may find it easier to use Ctrl-F to find the name your are looking for.