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Aside from being influenced by people who did it earlier (I wrote fanfic, which drew from other fanfic writers), I think people just like consistency. Insofar as the Beleriand years are numbered at all - and the Slim doesn't do much of that, it prefers relative dating - they're numbered from the rising of the Sun. That count is reset to 1 at the start of the Second Age, and again to 1 for the Third and Fourth. Therefore, consistency demands that the initial 1-600ish are the First Age. It's wrong, but it's easy to keep in your head.
"Years of the Sun of the First Age" runs into problems when Tolkien decided the Sun was always around. He still kept using those old Sun-years, but they're not really counting from anything - the arrival of Fingolfin in Middle-earth ends up being the start of the count. (I guess the Shire Reckoning does the same thing, so why not?) I've no idea what you'd call that.
hS
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