"Aerith Gainsborough (エアリス・ゲインズブール, Earisu Geinzubūru) - spelled Aeris Gainsborough in the English Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Tactics - is a player character in Square's (now Square Enix) console role-playing game Final Fantasy VII. She was designed by Tetsuya Nomura with influence from Yoshinori Kitase, Hironobu Sakaguchi and Yoshitaka Amano.

In Final Fantasy VII, Aeris is a 22-year-old woman who joins AVALANCHE. As the story progresses, AVALANCHE begin to pursue the antagonist Sephiroth, and the player learns that Aeris is a Cetra, or "Ancient", one of the planet's oldest races. Aerith has also appeared in the later-released Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and Kingdom Hearts series.

Her voice actors are Maaya Sakamoto in the Japanese versions of the Kingdom Hearts series and Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, singer and actress Mandy Moore in the English version of Kingdom Hearts, actress Mena Suvari in the English versions of Kingdom Hearts II and Advent Children, and Andrea Bowen in Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Aerith and the events surrounding her death in Final Fantasy VII have met with an overall positive reception from critics and fans."

Source: Wikipedia, "Aerith_Gainsborough", available under the CC-BY-SA License.