Halapoulivaati Vaitai says he is asked to pronounce his first name "about 10 to 15 times a day, usually." His nature is such that he remains pleasant nevertheless. He smiles patiently and says in a soft voice that belies his 6-foot-6, 315-pound stature, "Hal-lah-poo-lee-VAH-tee."
His brothers, twins born just 11 months after him, are named Kevin and Will. They rarely have to pronounce their names for strangers. Vaitai's parents, Hakilivi and Shirley Vaitai, who moved from Tonga to the Fort Worth area in the 1980s, honored the heritage of the South Pacific island monarchy with their first-born.
It would be a better story if "halapoulivaati" was a Polynesian word for "heart of a tiger" or "right tackle of the gods," but it is actually just the name of Hakilivi's second cousin.