Asa

Asa is a clean line, drawn in two strokes. The Hebrew name means "physician" or "healer" and belongs to a king of Judah in the Old Testament, remembered for his religious reforms. It is also a Japanese word for "morning," a coincidence that lends the name a quiet cross-cultural shimmer. In America, Asa was popular among Puritan settlers, faded for much of the twentieth century, and has been gently returning; today it sits at 474. Two open syllables, no hard edges, nothing to stumble over. Asa reads as spare and a little bit sunlit, the minimalist's classic.