What is the state’s official spelling, “Hawaii” or “Hawai’i”? It’s neither. “Officially,” in the Hawaiian language, it’s actually spelled with an okina (‘)[1], not an apostrophe (‘). An okina is a glottal stop.Click to see full answer. Just so, what is the proper spelling of Hawaii?The name of the state, Hawaii, is not written with an ‘okina between the two “i”, because our Statehood Act in 1959 used the spelling “Hawaii.” An Act of Congress is required to “correct” the name of the state to Hawai’i. Thus, the name of the state is Hawaii, while the name of the island of the same name is Hawai’i.Subsequently, question is, what does Hawai’i mean? Hawaii. from Hawaiian Hawai’i, from Proto-Polynesian *hawaiki. Said to mean “Place of the Gods” and be a reference to Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Similarly, it is asked, how do you spell Honolulu? Correct spelling for the English word “honolulu” is [h_ˌ?_n_?_l_ˈuː_l_uː], [hˌ?n?lˈuːluː], [hˌ?n?lˈuːluː]] (IPA phonetic alphabet).Which way does the Okina go?The ʻokina has historically been represented in computer publications by the grave accent (`), the left single quotation mark (‘), or the apostrophe (‘), especially when the correct typographical mark (ʻ) is not available.