why do you label your babies with the letter x?

[DaphnesandFreddysmom]

Why do I see x3 and x4's when you are talking about babies? Why do they are start with x's?

 

[tunes]

Because this is the X year for babies. Next year will be the Y year.

Every year has it's own letter to help in record keeping with births of kits.

 

[DaphnesandFreddysmom]

so it just goes down in the alphabet than the following year after next year will be z? Sorry it just got a bit confusing when I see people saying x4 and x5 baby.

 

[Rickman]

I'm hoping to get to Z in a couple of years - wish they'd do it in reverse once, I get tired of always being last! [Last name of Zimmerman!]

 

[mishalaa]

There are a couple letters that aren't used because they look too similar to other letters / numbers. When this system was implemented, nearly all pedigrees were hand-written (and many still are) so to cut down on confusion, they just left a few letters out. For example, last year was "V" year. We skipped "W" because it's pretty close to "V" in appearance. "O" is skipped because it could be 0, and so on.

Other letters not used are G, I, Q, U, and Y.

Next year is a Z year, not Y. =)

 

[tunes]

I did not know there was no Y. I don't think it looks like anything else, does it? I guess I didn't think you can mistake a Y and a V or W as there is no tail.

Thanks Mish!

 

[mishalaa]

When I hand write, my upper case Ys look like a V, with just that right side slant extended into a tail. And my Vs look an awful lot like Us. My 5's also resemble Ss, so I don't think S should be allowed as a year, but that's just me. ^^

 

[Ronda]

Canada uses their U. Last year was U for them.

Ronda