‘A’ is for Aidan

Arr. My son, whose name is AIDAN, was named such because we thought it was a kind of cool, uniqueish name. We only really knew of one other Aidan, that being Aidan Quinn, actor. We were a lit­tle leery of peo­ple think­ing we’d named our son after him, because we didn’t. We just like the name. Sure, we like him as an actor, and we think he’s cute, but we didn’t really think any­one would make an association.

Boy were we right. Because just about every­one who runs across him seems to be mak­ing an asso­ci­a­tion with some­body named AIDEN. Well, except the peo­ple at his day­care, who have insisted on writ­ing his name AIDON from day one. That one just escapes us. But Aiden we can at least under­stand… if maybe you have no Irish in you any­where. (Aidan is #63 on the SS rolls for 2002, Aiden is #141.)

I have, how­ever, hit upon a way for peo­ple to remem­ber how to spell his name. You just have to think of me as an ego­tis­ti­cal man who wants his son named after him. Then, the last bit of his name, “dan” becomes the first part of my name, “daniel” and it’s all clear. AIDAN.

Yes? We know and under­stand that everyone’s inten­tions are good, hence the mnemonic above. You could also go with, “A is for Aidan. ‘a’ is also for Aidan.” Remem­ber it, use it. Help to pre­vent a life­time of mispellings.

Of course, I have been get­ting mail for a Ms. D. N. Robert lately.