Meaning and background
The story behind Kalua
Kalua has a documented Hawaiian cooking association. Merriam-Webster records it as an adjective for food baked in an earth oven and traces it to Hawaiian kālua, a verb for that cooking method. The dictionary’s example is kalua pig. A household might choose the name to recall a meal or a Hawaiian connection, but that supported food-word history should not be replaced by an unrelated meaning inferred from a similar brand spelling.
- Association
- Hawaiian cooking term: baked in an earth oven, from Hawaiian kālua. Source
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About Kalua
Recorded as a dog’s name
Kalua appears in 7 dog licence records in the 2022 New York City dataset.
How to read this count
These records cover New York City and may count the same dog in more than one licence period. They are not a national popularity ranking.
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Sources and research notes (1)
- New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene NYC Dog Licensing Dataset — all seven available extract years, retrieved 24 October 2026 — Recorded name spellings in NYC licence-period rows, extract years 2016–2018, 2022–2024 and 2026. Evidence selects one stated year per name. Annual snapshots overlap; never sum them as unique dogs. No national popularity, etymology or owner naming-intent claim.
References support the individual facts shown. A source link does not mean the entire profile has been verified.