What's an "Adso"?!?

So, way back many years ago before I went to law school and actually had time to read, my favorite books were (and still are) the Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon. In her fifth book, The Fiery Cross the main characters, Jamie and Claire, adopt a kitten, who Jamie names Adso. And for almost 10 years I knew that would be the name of my first cat.

Excerpt from TFC:
“What do you think I should call him?” I mused aloud, touching the tip of the soft, wispy tail. “Spot? Puff? Cloudy?”

“Foolish names,” Jamie said, with a lazy tolerance. “Is that what ye were wont to call your pussie-baudrons in Boston, then? Or England?”

“No, I’ve never had a cat before,” I admitted. “Frank was allergic to them – they made him sneeze. And what’s a good Scottish cat name, then – Diarmuid? MacGillivray?”He snorted, then laughed.

“Adso,” He said positively. “Call him Adso.”

“What sort of name is that?” I demanded, twisting to look back at him in amazement “I’ve heard a good many peculiar Scottish names, but that’s a new one.”
He rested his chin comfortably on my shoulder, watching the kitten sleep.
“My mother had a wee cat named Adso,” he said, surprisingly. “A gray cheetie, verra much like this one.”

“Did she?” I laid a hand on his leg. He rarely spoke of his mother, who died when he was eight.

“Aye, she did. A rare mouser, and that fond of my mother, he didna have much use for us bairns.” He smiled in memory. “Possibly because Jenny dressed him in baby gowns and fed him rusks, and I dropped him into the millpond, to see could he swim. He could, by the way,” he informed me, “but he didna like to.”

“I can’t say I blame him,” I said, amused. “Why was he called Adso, though? Is it a saint’s name?” I was used to the peculiar names of Celtic saints, from Aodh – pronounced OOH – to Dervorgilla, but hadn’t heard of Saint Adso before. Probably the patron saint of mice.

“Not a saint,” he corrected. “A monk. My mother was verra learned – she was educated at Leoch, ye ken, along with Colum and Dougal, and could read Greek and Latin, and a bit of Hebrew as well as French and German. She didna have so much opportunity for reading at Lallybroch, of course, but my father would take pains to have books fetched for her, from Edinburgh and Paris.”

He reached across my body to touch a silky, translucent ear, and the kitten twitched its whiskers, screwing up its face as though about to sneeze, but didn’t open its eyes. The purr continued unabated.

“One of the books she liked was written by an Austrian, from the city of Melk, so she thought it a verra suitable name for the kit.”

“Suitable . . . ?”

“Aye,” he said, nodding toward the empty dish, without the slightest twitch of lip or eyelid. “Adso of Milk.”

A slit of green showed as one eye opened, as though in response to the name. Then it closed again, and the purring resumed.

“Well, if he doesn’t mind, I suppose I don’t,” I said, resigned. “Adso it is.”

Diana came to Roseville when her new book came out, and aside from the 2 books I got signed, I also had her sign a copy of a picture.....she wrote in the gaelic on it, and signed it, and it sits prominently on my end table, one of my most favorite possessions.

Now, if someone had just warned me that little kids attempting to pronounce it sounds like something else entirely......"Assho?!?"