By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
He goes by Hayden Burgess in his law practice, but for many
other public purposes he is Poka Laenui.
Name Change
Different paths to
By Kekoa Catherine Enomoto
a new beginning
Star-BulletinTWO native Hawaiian lawyers changed their names -- one legally, one through assertion.
Poka Laenui did the latter. "It's really a statement of liberation when one decides to take a name and not go through the government stamp of approval," said Laenui, otherwise known as attorney Hayden Fern Burgess of Waianae. "If you follow through the spiritual development and trace the soul's journey, it's not for the government to approve or disapprove a name change.
"Names are so important in Hawaiian tradition, no government can say OK and not OK," he said. "It's the willingness of an individual to assert his name, rather than to ask for permission to wear that name."
For Laenui, as well as the second lawyer, the reason was maternal genealogy.
In the late 1970s, John Melvin Agard Jr. traced his family back seven generations and noted that his great-grandmother's line had been Kealoha for at least three generations.
Agard decided he wanted to take Kealoha as his middle name, and have Keoni -- the name he'd been called since birth -- as his legal first name.
"I went to Pu'u O Mahuka heiau in Pupukea and I asked for permission of my ancestors to take Kealoha as my middle name," he said. After praying and obtaining his dad's wholehearted support, he became Keoni Kealoha Agard.
"It just so happens that in 1981 when I made the legal name change," he recalled, "two months later I began working at the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation. From that day my legal career has evolved into defending native Hawaiian land rights and water rights, and that's what I've done ever since."
Remarkably, "ke 'oni" in Hawaiian means "taking to court, as land matters."
"My ancestors were owners of large tracts of land in their day, on the Big Island and Molokai," Agard said. "On the Big Island the property was located in both Kau and Kohala, and in a place called Ka'ili'ula in East Molokai."
In 1983, as a corporation staff attorney, Agard negotiated a record land-title settlement worth $12 million. Maui Land & Pineapple Co. had tried to use quiet-title action to gain 140 acres that would benefit descendants of 27 native Hawaiian families.
Later Agard was a policy and program analyst for the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. He said his research provided the basis for negotiating the 1995 $600 million settlement with the state for breach of the homelands trust, and for the return of 16,518 acres to the department.
Now in private law practice, Agard mused on the power of one's name.
"There are mo'olelo -- stories of the past -- where Hawaiians believe that the name of a person would be very critical and at the time of birth the name given would dictate the direction of the person involved," he said. "And that's what happened to me -- I changed the course of my life's direction by changing my name. I created a different opportunity."
Laenui affirmed the significance of names and name changes in native culture.
"If you look back on Hawaiian tradition and history, people changed their names when different events occurred, and at different levels of maturity," he said.
He practices law, is listed in the phone book and has a driver's license as Hayden Burgess. As Burgess, he ran for the state School Board in 1968 -- at the time the youngest person, at age 20, to file for Hawaii public office. The same year, he served as a Constitutional Convention delegate. In 1982 he was elected a state Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee.
Laenui took his great-great-grandmother's name, Poka, at the insistence of his mentor, the late kupuna (elder) Pilahi Paki.
Poka translates to the explosive force of a bullet, Laenui to great wisdom. As Laenui he is a United Nations delegate, executive director of the Waianae Mental Health Center and host of his own Hawai'i Public Radio talk shows.
Said Laenui, "In Hawaiian tradition, you may have a name but you're not given that name until you're older and your character is stronger, so you can take on the power of that name."
Making the switch
Where to go for a legal name change:
Oahu: Lieutenant Governor's office
The writer of these stories has changed her name
to Kekoa Catherine Enomoto to honor her Hawaiian family name.
Kekoa means the brave or the warrior.
