[jQuery] how to get name attribute from $(this)

[Bhaarat Sharma]

Hi

I am trying to create a slideing menu. I have this code

 $('#menu li a').click(
    function() {
        $(this).next().slideToggle('normal');
      }
    );

This is working fine but now i am trying to add the cookie plugin by
kalus into this so that it remembers which menu item was open and
which closed.

I am very new to jquery so the way i thought of doing this was.
   - at Every click I will set the cookie with name of the menu item
         $.cookie('the_cookie', 'value'); //value would actually be
name attribute value from <a

So how can i retrieve the value of the 'name' attribute form $(this)?

thanks for any helpt