I subscribe to one of those web stat services that lets you know how many people are looking at your site, as well as what keywords they are using to get here. In some ways it is pretty frightening: the service gives me the IP address of the user and in many cases the provider/server he or she is using. In some instances, especially with a few universities that give the professor's name to the particular server, I can even tell which individual is visiting the site. (Personally, I don't think institutions should do that.)
But it is kind of fun to look at why people come to the site. Most people come because they are looking for something about me or about Japanese cinema, but I also get a lot of hits for people looking for something quite different. For instance, I get a lot of visits for keywords like "movie industry statistics," which brings them to my introduction to the stats for last year, but I'm sure most are looking for American industry statistics, not Japanese ones. Amusingly, I sometimes get visits from Japanese users looking for "poruno" and ending up on my post on Akatsuka Fujio. (Please, if you are looking for English language skin flicks, it is spelled "porno" not "poruno"!).
But probably the most popular irrelevant search I get is "Aaron in Japanese." My name and the Japanese topic are enough to bring people who are probably just trying to find out how Aaron is written in Japanese. I certainly wish such visitors would stick around and check out some of the info this site has to offer on Japanese film, but I also don't want to dismay them since this is a subject I know something about.
So here it is: "Aaron" written in Japanese katakana:
アーロン
That's the main way you write it, although a few adventuresome souls might want to find Chinese kanji that fit the name "Aaron." The problem is that nothing really fits that well because there are few kanji with the sounds "a" or "ron." Here are some possibilities:
亜論 (could mean "Asian argument" since 亜 often denotes Asia; 論 is argument or discourse)
阿論 (阿 has various meanings, but is often used for phonetic renderings)
These all are really "Aron," without the long sound. For the longer sound, here's my favorite:
嗚呼論 (where 嗚呼 is just the exclamation "Ahh")
I wonder if this is what my wife says when she sighs and says my name.
One alternative is to try a different rendering of Aaron in the Japanese syllabic system. All the above are basically pronounced "ahlon." But "Aaron," at least in American English pronunciation, is just as close to "aylon" or, more properly, "eiron." So you could also render it:
エーロン
However, this is never done for foreigners with the name Aaron. (Check out Hank Aaron on the Japanese Wikipedia.) But it does allow for some more interesting kanji combinations because there are more interesting kanji with the pronunciation "ei" (or "ay"). Here are some with their approximate meanings:
栄論 (prosperous argument)
詠論 (poetic discourse)
影論 (shadow argument)
衛論 (protected discourse)
英論 (English discourse - 英 is often used to denote England or English)
永論 (eternal argument)
洩論 (leaked discourse)
瑛論 (sparkling argument)
鋭論 (shrewd argument)
For something ridiculous:
海鷂魚論 (where 海鷂魚 is one way of writing "ei" or the marine "ray" in Japanese)
And my favorite, since I am a film person:
映論 (where 映 (lit. "project) is from 映画=eiga=cinema)
So that's what I use when I'm joking around and writing my name in kanji.
I hope this satisfies some of you looking for "Aaron in Japanese." Now please check out the rest of the site!