Aslan is the central character in the Chronicles of Narnia series of books written by C.S. Lewis.  In short, the Aslan character is the symbol of Jesus.  He died for our the sins of the world (Narnia) and rose three days later.  We gave Malori her middle name based on the Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia books.  Below, you'll find a pretty deep analysis of the Aslan character from the Chronicles of Narnia.  

The following a an excerpt from an article about the meaning behind the Chronicles of Narnia books by Mark Bane.

 

Up to this point, little has been said about the spiritual, the religious, well why not say it: the Christian element of the Narnia books. This is because that element was not present at the birth of the narrative. Lewis has emphatically denied that he sat down to write a series of stories that were encoded depictions of Christian truth, or moral lessons sugarcoated to appeal to children. Nevertheless, the Christian element of the Narnian mythos is unmistakable. So how did this element find its way into the stories? Well, in a sub-creative fashion, Lewis saw his handiwork — the Lion Aslan, and he saw that it was good. Immediately the author recognized the potential of his character. A lion had come "bounding" into the story, and He was obviously one of great importance. Lewis quickly noted the numinous awe in which the other characters held him. Also, it was not lost on him that the lion was a recurrent Biblical symbol for the Christ. Here the author asked "what if the Son of God entered into a world of talking animals in the form of a lion?" If Lewis could present a Narnian version of the Incarnation, he would have a forum to articulate some of his most precious feelings about his God. And he could do so without the Law, without religious duty and hypocrisy entering into the equation. It had been Lewis’s personal experience that what made it hard to feel the way one ought to feel about one's God was the sheer fact that there were feelings one ought to have. With Aslan, Lewis had a tabula rasa. He could enjoin the reader to feel love and devotion without that suffocating sense of duty. He could convey his own great gratitude and love for his God without sermonizing. He could, as he once put it, "steal past those watchful dragons."

In the first two books, Aslan is a clear-cut figure. He inspires fear in his enemies and love and devotion in his friends. He makes the four children from our world high kings and queens, and banishes all traces of evil from his kingdom. Here Lewis is speaking of the first glorious days of one's spiritual experience.

However, with the advent of the third book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lewis takes the reader into deeper theological waters. Here Aslan seems more distant; he appears in other forms, such as a lamb and an albatross. Lewis deepens the spiritual experience of his characters by making Aslan harder to find. Faith now enters into the equation — belief without seeing. This is best embodied by the mouse Reepicheep, who is determined to find Aslan's Country, even if he has to swim to the end of the world to do so. Also in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Lewis introduces the idea of the skeptic, the non-believer, in the form of Eustace Clarence Scrubb. Eustace is turned into a dragon through his own greed and ignorance. However, Aslan peels away the layers of dragon skin until the real boy underneath is revealed. By this, the reader comes to understand the process of conversion and sanctification.

The next two books, The Silver Chair and The Horse and his Boy, reveal some of Aslan's "wilder" aspects. He is after all, "not a tame lion." In The Silver Chair, when Jill and Eustace first get into Aslan's country, Jill pushes her companion off a cliff. For this piece of grave mischief, Aslan comes between her and a stream. He warns Jill that he has eaten small girls before, "and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms." However, even in this fearful aspect, Aslan wants the girl to come and drink. The fear of the Lord should not prevent us from coming to Him. Later, Aslan gives Jill a number of signs to follow, which she promptly forgets. When she despairs about this in a dream, the Lion exhorts her to take courage. "I will not always be scolding," Aslan says. Lewis is illustrating the fact that God's correction is from love, not austerity. But God is a just God, as shown in The Horse and his Boy. Aslan scratches the Calormene princess Aravis, so that she will remember how it feels. Also, Lewis portrays Aslan as a Divine hunter, a hound of heaven, in this novel. The Lion pursues Shasta throughout his quest, driving him on to his destination and his destiny.

Having revealed God's divine nature in the previous books, Lewis uses the last two Chronicles to address eschatological points — namely, the beginning and end of Narnia. The Magician's Nephew gives us Narnia's Genesis account. Here Aslan is established as the Creator — he sings Narnia into existence, and gives the animals the gift of speech. Evil enters the young world through a fallen creature: Jadis, queen of the dead world Charn. Like the story of Eden, Lewis incorporates a garden with very peculiar and powerful fruit. He even depicts man's role in the creation by establishing Narnia with a human king and queen. The Last Battle shows the end of Narnia. First we see its descent into wickedness, and its rejection of Aslan's authority. Next, the last few faithful Narnians are persecuted. Just when things look darkest, Aslan returns to save the day, but he does so by making it the Last Day. All worlds have their ends, according to Lewis, except Aslan's own country. All of the faithful friends of Narnia enter into Aslan's country, where they are reunited with old friends. But this is not the end. Aslan's guests are invited to go "further up and further in" to glorious adventures too beautiful to describe. Lewis ends his last Narnia story by giving the readers an imaginative foretaste of what heaven is like.

In the final analysis, it is difficult to seize upon any one thing as Lewis’s sole intention in writing the Chronicles. His purposes were built on top of one another. He proceeded up from children's fairy tales and took them into the realms of intense theology. However, neither side enjoys success at the expense of the other. It is the fact that the Chronicles are fairy stories that makes their spiritual richness shine out, and it is that richness that makes them the sort of fairy stories to be enjoyed by everyone — both children and adults.