NAMES IN THE NEWS : Japan Prince Readies Wedding

The love story that captured the romantic imagination of a nation neared its climax today when Prince Aya, 24-year-old younger son of Emperor Akihito, returned to Japan to take the hand of his commoner fiancee.

“I’m looking forward to my new life, but distance has made it difficult for me to really feel the excitement,” the tall prince with the droopy mustache said just before completing his zoology studies at Britain’s Oxford University.

Aya, second-in-line to the imperial throne behind unmarried elder brother Naruhito, 30, surprised the public last fall by announcing his engagement to 23-year-old Kiko Kawashima. They will marry June 29.

“Kiko-san,” as the popular press affectionately calls her, is the daughter of an economics professor and was Aya’s fellow student at Gakushuin University in Tokyo.

Aya is only the second male member of Japan’s centuries-old imperial family to seek and win the hand of a commoner. Kawashima will be made a princess after they marry.

Aya follows in the footsteps of his father, Akihito, who, as crown prince in 1959, broke imperial precedent and married Michiko, the daughter of a wealthy flour miller.