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I suspect \[Andy] was meant to represent a staff member, or at least a person of importance. I tried the F1-"Wolfram Search", Wolfram|Alpha and a simple mathematica.SE & Google search.

Can somebody please tell me why \[Andy] is a named character in Mathematica?

My installation is on version 11.3

"Proof" of existence

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    $\begingroup$ This much I can say: the character being used corresponds to f729 in Unicode, which is a private use character. You can confirm this by typing \:f729 in a notebook and using FullForm[] on the result. $\endgroup$
    – J. M.'s persistent exhaustion ♦
    Mar 17, 2019 at 13:52
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    $\begingroup$ They also have \[Spooky], \[Villa], and \[Akuz]. Perhaps long forgotten Easter Eggs, I'm not sure. I can't seem to infer any meaning from them, nor am I aware of any higher ups at WRI named Andy... Maybe if there was a \[SW] or \[Stephen]... $\endgroup$
    – ktm
    Mar 17, 2019 at 14:22
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    $\begingroup$ FWIW I tested all the way back to 5.2 and this character has existed since then. $\endgroup$
    – Greg Hurst
    Mar 17, 2019 at 23:59

1 Answer 1

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The original MMa fonts were designed by Andre Kuzniarek and Andrew Hunt.

From Andre:

Indeed, those are old easter eggs, and there used to be glyphs for each of us. They were "abandonded" in later releases. All were involved in dealing with font design, encoding and integration going back to the initial Unicode release (V3). Myself, Andy Hunt, Robby Villegas (rest his soul), and a cat named Spooky (mascot for Karen Fernsler).

Rest well, Robby, indeed.

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    $\begingroup$ \[Akuz]=Andre Kuzniarek? $\endgroup$
    – Chris K
    Mar 18, 2019 at 8:41
  • $\begingroup$ Oh well, I doubt there will be a better answer. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – Kevin Groenke
    Mar 26, 2019 at 18:57
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    $\begingroup$ @KevinGroenke- I sent an email to Andre to see if he'll confirm. I'll let you know. $\endgroup$
    – flip
    Mar 27, 2019 at 20:56
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    $\begingroup$ @flip, you should edit your answer to include that. Nice history. :) $\endgroup$
    – J. M.'s persistent exhaustion ♦
    Mar 28, 2019 at 13:24
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    $\begingroup$ @flip I really appreciate your findings, please have my gratitude. $\endgroup$
    – Kevin Groenke
    Mar 30, 2019 at 16:35

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