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In Billie Letts' Where the Heart Is', Moses Whitecotton advises, Get your baby a name that means something. A sturdy name. Strong name. Name that's gonna withstand a lot of bad times. A lot of hurt.' That the essence of a name is absorbed by its owner is a belief held by many and christening a baby is a solemn event in most cultures. When you keep that in mind, it is a good idea to delve into the meaning and history of a name before bequeathing it to your son/daughter.

Etymology of Aiden
Aiden (Ay-den) is a masculine name and it means little fire' in Gaelic. Aiden is an anglicized spelling of the Old Irish Aedan, which is a pet form of Aed, the Celtic sun-god.

Origin and History
This name has rather interesting roots in Christian history as well as Irish mythology. St. Aiden, a monk from Iona in the 7th century is the first known person with that name. In 635 AD, he established his monastery on the island of Lindisfarne to preach Christianity.

Aed, from where Aiden is derived, was one of the sons of Lir, the Irish mythological king of the sea. The story of Aed (pronounced ay or ee), his two brothers and his sister is a tale of tragedy. Turned into swans by their jealous stepmother, the children were banished to roam the waters for 900 years. They sang their sorrows in the sweetest voices and many hearts were touched and many tears wrung until the enchantment was finally broken nearly a thousand years later when their feathers fell off and their grey, dishevelled bodies lay dead side by side.

Popularity
In Ireland, Aiden has always been a popular name because of its associations with mythology and religion. As a matter of fact, eight high kings of Ireland carried the name Aiden. It was fairly common in the 8th century in honour of St. Aiden but its use did not spread until the 19th century. It eventually reached the top 100 names at the turn of the new millennium. Babycenter.com pronounced Aiden as the single most popular name for boys in 2005 and it has stayed there ever since.

Namesakes
The Aiden Cox Foundation was set up by the parents of Aiden Cox, a four year old boy affected by Cerebral Palsy. The aim of the Foundation is to raise awareness and improve government funding for the Scotson Technique, a groundbreaking rehabilitation therapy that has proved that Cerebral Palsy can be treated.

If you do name your boy Aiden, there are two places you must take him. The statue of St. Aiden in Lindisfarne and the Children of Lir memorial in the Garden of Remembrance in Dublin which shows Aed and his siblings being turned into swans.

Famous persons
A famous person with the name is Aiden McGeady, the 23-year old Celtic mid-fielder from Glasgow. In 2004, McGeady scored the only goal in his senior debut match against Hearts and won the Man of the Match' for his performance. In 2006 he gave another Man of the Match performance against Rangers. Aiden' is also the name of an American rock band from Seattle formed in 2003. Interestingly, they named themselves after the little boy in the horror movie, The Ring. Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897-1963) was a famous American Protestant pastor who authored nearly 40 books on Christianity.

Name variants
In the recent surge of popularity, Aiden is also spelt as Aidan, Aydan or Aden. Other variants of the name used very rarely are Aodh (pronounced 'ee') and Aodhan (ee-yen), both meaning fire. Gaelic, Irish and Scottish in origin, Aodh is the modern variant of the original Aed.

What's in a name? Rather a lot, apparently!

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