Plain answers
The questions people arrive with
Each answered in a screenful, with the longer treatment linked. If your question is not here, it may be on the unsettled list, which is where we keep the ones we cannot answer yet.
Was Duke a title?
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No. It was his given name. His father was christened Duke Halapu Kahanamoku to mark the 1869 visit of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, to Hawaiʻi, and the son inherited the name. Nobody ever called him Duke as an honorific, and it was never "The Duke".
How do you say Kahanamoku?
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ka-HA-na-MO-ku. Every vowel is sounded: four even beats, then the last. There is a fuller pronunciation guide, including Kūhiō and Waikīkī, on the statue page.
How many Olympic medals did he win?
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Five: three gold and two silver, across the Games of 1912, 1920 and 1924. He was an alternate in 1928 and 1932 and competed in neither, and he was not on the 1924 relay. Claims of six medals or four Games are wrong, and common.
Did he invent surfing?
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No, and he did not father it either. Heʻe nalu is Hawaiian and centuries older than him, and it was driven down under missionary suppression before he was born. What Duke did was carry it out to the world and help bring it back at home. He was also not the first to show it in California: George Freeth was demonstrating there from 1907.
What was the rescue everyone mentions?
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On 14 June 1925 a fishing boat called the Thelma capsized in heavy surf off Newport Beach, California, with seventeen men aboard. Duke went out on his board and brought men back one at a time until he had brought in eight. Three other men on boards saved four more. Five drowned.
Who owns his name?
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A company called Malama Pono, Inc. consolidated the trademarks and publicity rights in 1999, after decades in which the name was sold, passed through a bankruptcy, and litigated over. His own family was largely shut out, and has said so on the record. The company that publishes this site licenses the name from Malama Pono.
Are you the Duke Kahanamoku Foundation?
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No. The Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Foundation is an independent 501(c)(3), founded in 1986, which runs scholarships, grants and water-safety work. It has no connection to us, and it is the place to give. We are a for-profit company and this site takes no money from anyone.
Why are there no photographs of him here?
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Because none are cleared. The licence this site operates under covers his name and likeness; it does not cover a photographer’s copyright in any particular frame. Each photograph has to be cleared separately, in writing, with the archive or estate that holds it, and until one is, it does not appear. We would rather have empty space than an uncleared image.
What does this site not know?
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Four things, currently: the exact start of his sheriff’s tenure, the founding year of Hui Nalu, the date of the Ambassador of Aloha appointment, and the original wording of the police chief’s quotation about the 1925 rescue. There are also three famous sayings attributed to Duke that we will not print, because no trail we followed ends anywhere better than a quotation website citing another quotation website.