I also went to the embassy the other day to pick up my visa. How to spell my first name? The linguistic history of Aaron, a name with unknown etymology (maybe mountain), is almost as obscure as its etymological history. The hebrew אהרן transliterated aharon became Aaron, which is pronounced out here in Seattle like the Irish girl's name. On my invitation the cyrillic version came out Эйрон--roughly Ayron but on the final visa they went with Аарон, which is more like the old Hebrew. I am interested to find out how the name is usually spelled--or was when people with the name lived in Russia. The rest of my name is шолом эрлих. I especially like my last name.