About Ariki Art's Name

Have you ever wondered how Ariki Art got its name, what it means, and how it's pronounced? Today I'd like to give you the answers.
I started Ariki Art back in 2002 to assist my friend Raymond Neher with selling his inventory of art. At the time he was being treated for lung cancer and creating an online gallery for him seemed like a way I could give him a positive boost. So the first thing I had to do before I could start the website was to register the domain name. I was hoping for something with "online gallery" in it, but everything I could think of was already taken. I brainstormed for days but it got to the point where it seemed everything I came up with would already be gone.

So in the end I decided that the only sure way to come up with a unique name would be to turn to the language of the native Polynesians of my native land, the New Zealand Maori. I went through lists of Maori words at that point, looking for something that would not only be inspirational, but also not impossible to pronounce for what would be a mostly American audience. So whakarewarewaart.com was just not going to fly!

So I finally settled on "ariki" which means "chief", as in the leader of the tribe. So you can see we wanted to be the "big cheese" in the online art world.

As for how to pronounce ariki, it's fairly straightforward for any Kiwi, and easy for anyone else once you know how. This is how I would represent it phonetically: uh-REE-key. Hope that makes sense to you.

I hope this answers all your questions about our unusual name.