January 30, 1937
Dear Mr. Craig
Your letter inquiring about the origin of my name has been forwarded to me by my publishers Cassell & Co. In answer to your question, I must say that “Ayn” is both a real name and an invention. The original of it is a Finnish feminine name which is spelled in Russian thus: “Aйнa”. Its pronunciation, spelled phonetically, would be: “I-na”. I do not know what its correct spelling should be in English, but I chose to make it “Ayn”, eliminating the final “a”. I pronounce it as the letter “I” with an “n” added to it.
I hope this will prove helpful to you in your interesting study.
Sincerely yours,
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