[Shayne Parkinson]

Since Snakey's not here at the moment, I'll hope my answer was right and post a new question. It has a long-winded set-up, so you may wish to get a coffee (or alternative) first.

The Maori language (te reo Maori) only has 14 letters in its written form. Here are the consonants in Maori:

g (only in form "ng"), h, k, m, n, p, r, t, w (both by itself and in "wh")

You'll see from this that several consonantal sounds don't exist in Maori. Another aspect of the language is that all words end with a vowel.

So when personal names in other languages (most often English) are transliterated into Maori, the result can end up looking very different. An example of a name that's relatively unchanged is Peter, which becomes Pita. One that changes a lot is David, which becomes Rawiri.

So what do you think might have been the European name that became one I quite often come across: Irihapeti?