Hau’oli Kikaha is quickly making a name for himself with the New Orleans Saints where, for the moment, he is known simply as "Hau."

For one thing it is easier for folks in Louisiana to pronounce and, Kikaha reasons, "I don’t feel bad if they say half my name. It is (better) than if they try the whole name and mess it up."

But nobody needs to ask how their "Hau" is doing in his rookie season.

Through the first half of his inaugural campaign at linebacker the Kahuku High graduate is second among the Saints in sacks (four) and third in tackles (37) with three forced fumbles for good measure.

Making it look almost easy at times in the Big Easy has given Kikaha a sudden, almost dizzying blast of celebrity. "It is different, something I’m not used to," Kikaha said. "It is just a lot different to go places and have people recognize you and want to take pictures with you."

But, then, Kikaha suggests, "I tend to stand out like sore thumb here. There are not too many Hawaiians with long hair here. So, people spot me pretty easily. But they have great fans here."

Kikaha has given them a lot to applaud not only stepping into a starting linebacker role on a team where, traditionally, rookies have had to wait their turn at the position but doing it while learning a new role.

At the University of Washington, where he led the nation in sacks last season with 19 and earned All-American honors, Kikaha was what he likes to call, "a guy who put his hand in the dirt" at defensive end.

His role was almost exclusively to get to the quarterback as a pass rusher, something he mastered with a school record 36 career sacks in little more than two seasons of full-time play due to injuries.

Two and half of those sacks came against then- Oregon quarterback Marcus Mariota, who Kikaha and the Saints play Sunday in the Superdome.

If not for two knee surgeries and questions about whether he could adapt to dropping into pass coverage as a linebacker, Kikaha would have been a first-round pick in April’s NFL Draft along with Mariota, instead of his eventual second-round selection.

But Kikaha, perhaps providentially as it turned out, landed in New Orleans where opportunity awaited. From the opening of rookie camp in May he has characteristically gone all-in, the way he both hit quarterbacks and the books at Washington, where he was an Academic All-Pac-12 selection with a 3.5 grade point average.

"I’m making progress (playing) in coverage," Kikaha says, "I wouldn’t say I’m amazing, but it is a work in progress and I’m continuing to get better."

Adapting to linebacker on an NFL stage, for all its challenges, is less daunting than where he stood three years ago coming off two surgeries. He tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in 2011, and then did it again in the same knee early in training camp in 2012, keeping him off the field nearly two years.

"I always had the goal of making it (to the NFL)," Kikaha said. "I kept to that. I knew the road, for me, would be would be a little harder, a little longer and a little more rough. Definitely those two surgeries were obstacles. But it just meant that I had to dedicate more time, more effort, more energy and more thought each day to making it."

Small wonder these days Kikaha will tell you, "Every day I come into this (stadium), I wake up to the reality that this is my work, I’m really doing my dream job and I’m doing it in the NFL."

In New Orleans, where they are largely unaware that "Hau’oli" means "happy," the Saints are thrilled to have him by any name.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.