Why can't counterparty asset name begins with the letter "A"?

"A" is the prefix for numeric assets. This is a special class of assets with no issuance fee. The asset name begins with A followed by a very large integer between 26^12 + 1 and 256^8.
View this list of assets -
http://xcp.pw/allassets.html - to get a sense of the both numeric and alphabetic assets.