Where does Aardvark come from ?

I’ve used Aardvark as my personal signature since about 1978:

• “Aardvark” was my favorite of many in-words at school (Harrow Weald Grammar).
• Due to the shape of the letters my scribbled was, at first glace, assumed to be a scribbled “Roderick”.
• I was able to joke about my bad spelling saying that I was memorizing all of the words in the dictionary but had so far only got as far as Aardvark. Some would say there is still truth in that statement.

Aardvark : a nocturnal mammal of southern Africa, Orycteropus afer, with a tubular snout and a long extensible tongue, that feeds on termites. Also called ant-bear, earth-pig. [Afrikaans from aarde ‘earth’ + vark ‘pig’]

My web address doesn’t feature “Aardvark” as a consequence of its popularity amongst companies and individuals who want to be placed first in alphabetical listings. Interestingly the double A comes from the Danish language where it is represented by a single character Å (an A topped with a circle). In Danish listings the double A character is listed last; after Z. This includes for the town of Aalburg which prefers to spell its name with the double A. There might be some interesting repercussions with company names if the EU adopted the Danish rule for all European telephone directories.