Either just use SYS(2015) to create your table and alias name or put the underscore ("_") character in front of an alias that would otherwise begin with a digit. Earlier versions of VFP documentation was misleading in suggesting that SUBSTR(SYS(2015), 3) could be used to create a unique file name. True, but is also created illegal alias names as you have found out. If you have VFP 8 there is a note in the help file under SYS(3) which explains the problem.

David