Aina

Aina moves easily across oceans. In Japanese it can be written with characters for love and vegetable greens or affection and apple tree, bright and domestic meanings chosen by parents for daughters. In Hawaiian the same syllables mean land, the word for the islands themselves and a pillar of the phrase aloha aina. In Catalan and Basque it appears as a variant of Ana. Two open syllables, a central n that softens everything around it. The meanings differ, but the sound is unified: clear, warm, unfussy. A name that seems to belong to more than one place at once. Luminous and grounded.