Kona ranks at #202 with 525 entries, and the name has been climbing steadily since the early 2010s as part of the broader place-name pet-naming wave. Kona refers to the Hawaiian district and the coffee variety from that region, and both registers are doing real cultural work.
The Hawaiian-place naming pattern
Kona sits with Koa, Maui, and Leilani in the Hawaiian-coded pet name cluster. These names attract owners with Hawaiian connections (vacation memories, ancestry, transplants) and owners who simply want a warm-place name register. Kona has the additional advantage of also being a coffee-variety name, which gives it a domestic-everyday register on top of the geographic one.
One counter-reading: a meaningful share of Kona pet owners are working a brown-coat descriptor angle — Kona coffee is dark roast, and brown-coated dogs and cats sometimes get the name as a descriptor name in the same family as Cocoa and Mocha. The descriptor lands faster than the place-name reference for most observers, which makes Kona a flexible choice across registers.
Where the name lands by breed
Brown-coated retrievers, brown Labradors, Vizslas, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, and brown-coated mixed breeds over-index on Kona. The two-syllable shape with the open-A ending (KOH-nah) recalls well and projects clearly across distance, which makes it functional for active outdoor breeds as well as warm for indoor pets. The name does not cross meaningfully to baby naming, which is consistent with most place-name pet picks. Owners cross-shopping similar Hawaiian-coded names usually consider Koa alongside Kona, picking based on the pet's gender and energy register, with Kona winning out for warmer-coated dogs and Koa for the male slot.