David Aho

(male) Biblical name, borne by the greatest of all the kings of Israel, whose history is recounted with great vividness in the first and second books of Samuel and elsewhere. As a boy he killed the giant Philistine Goliath with his slingshot. As king of Judah, and later of all Israel, he expanded the power of the Israelites and established the security of their kingdom. He was also noted as a poet, many of the Psalms being attributed to him. The Hebrew derivation of the name is uncertain; it is said by some to represent a nursery word meaning ‘darling’. It is a very popular Jewish name, but is almost equally common among Gentiles in the English-speaking world. It is particularly common in Wales and Scotland, having been borne by the patron saint of Wales (see Dewi) and by two medieval kings of Scotland.

Finnish: from aho ‘glade’, ‘forest clearing’. Areas of woodland adjacent to farmhouses were cleared by slash-andburn techniques to produce glades which eventually became pastureland. The name is recorded in the Karelian Isthmus in eastern Finland from the 16th century. In northern Finland it was a popular ornamental name, adopted especially among people converting from Swedish surnames to Finnish in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is now a so-called ‘protected’ name in Finland, meaning that it may not be adopted except through birthright or marriage. In the U.S. it may also be an abbreviation of Ahonen.