Too weird?

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

What do you guys think of the name Marcial, pronounced like Marshall, for a boy?

I don't like the Marshall spelling, and I kind of think Marcial works because of the name Marcia, and I've seen it used in a couple places, but WDYT?

ETA: Just curious, would it make a difference if it was spelled Martial? Since that is a real word at least.
Also, I posted below but I thought I'd put it here too, this is purely hypothetical.  No child is in imminent danger of being named this. :)

Comments

[schexyschteve.livejournal.com]

Why though?

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

Why don't I like the name Marshall? It's just the "Marsh" part... it makes me think of a muddy pond. Whereas Marcial makes me think of Mars and "warrior."

[schexyschteve.livejournal.com]

How do you get "Mars" from Marcial, but not Marshall? Not to mention, they're said exactly the same.

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

Mars like the god of war. I just equate the word "martial" to Marcial, and "marsh" to Marshall for some reason.

[schexyschteve.livejournal.com]

...but they're all said exactly the same. I don't understand.

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

It's not the sound, it's the look. I like the sound. When I hear names, I picture them spelled in my head immediately, so the spelling makes a huge difference in my opinion of a name.

[schexyschteve.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the look of Marcial is only going to confuse people.

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

That's what I was afraid of and why I broached it here. I have seen it in a couple places before, so I thought it was worth exploring since I really do like it. But I can accept that I'm alone in my opinion :)

[roxtarrr.livejournal.com]

MTE

[piperwest12.livejournal.com]

The spelling reminds me of a toilet paper company named Marcal, so that's all I think of when reading this.

[ma-ee-uh.livejournal.com]

Ditto.

[mirhanda.livejournal.com]

+1

[lisasimpsonfan.livejournal.com]

No.

[sliveredlight.livejournal.com]

Agreed. A life of confusion.

[sweetest-asylum.livejournal.com]

NO

[becomingun.livejournal.com]

That's mean. What did your child do to deserve the life of constant explaining you'd be forcing on them?

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

To clarify, I'm not actually planning on naming my future (very, very future) son this. I've just always liked this name, but worried it would be too weird, so I decided to see what you guys thought. Apparently my worries were founded, haha.

[amaranti.livejournal.com]

@_@ Looks like ''Marcia'' with an 'l' to me. >< I get the whole image thing too when I say words, but so far Marshall just doesn't evoke much more than memories of my PE teacher whose last name it was XD

[alyssa22.livejournal.com]

God no. Just NO!

[solitudete.livejournal.com]

Marcial looks pretty awful, and Martial is even worse. Sorry : /

[ma-ee-uh.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[sweetest-asylum.livejournal.com]

this

[mirhanda.livejournal.com]

+1

[retrodancekitty.livejournal.com]

I agree that Martial would be much more fitting to your purpose, since you want to focus on the connection to Mars. The word "martial" in Latin is directly derived from the god Mars.

A little too bold for my taste if it's going to be a first name, but it's quite clever and original.

[http://users.livejournal.com/___heyvanity/]

I agree with this.

[chillinbabejodi.livejournal.com]

This.

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

Thanks-- apparently too original however. :)

Yes, it began with me thinking "oh martial sounds like the name Marshall LOL" and then the thinking continued towards the names Marcia/Marsha and then became Marcial. Also I love mythology so the connection to Mars (which the meaning of the name Marshall doesn't have at all, of course) was a big selling point for me.

Anyway, I'm definitely not planning on naming my son Marcial... I was just interested for the sake of the idea.

[etacanis.livejournal.com]

Not at all, and Martial is even worse considering, you know, the first thing I think of is martial law.

[mirhanda.livejournal.com]

Second is martial arts.

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

Martial arts is the first thing I think of. Followed by just war or the military in general.

[hashishinahooka.livejournal.com]

I don't hate in unique spelling of names, but this will cause lots of trouble, especially since it's already a name:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcial_Maciel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcial_Losada

It would be pronounced "Mar-see-al". It might also look like a girl's name to Anglo speakers. I'd avoid it.

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

I actually didn't know that, thank you for the info. :)

[cybeleadam.livejournal.com]

Martial is a normal name here (French speaking parts of Europe), and the spelling Marcial exists too (it's rare but it exists), so if you named a child that and people found it weird you could just say it's French. We don't pronounce it like Marshall, though.

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, thanks for the info :)

[hermione-vader.livejournal.com]

Marcial looks distracting and like other people have said, Martial = Martial law, a.k.a. what caused the English Civil War and a king's beheading. Not many happy connotations there.

Marshall is a perfectly good spelling---don't obsessed over the "marsh" part (few people do). Then again, I might be biased because one of my best friends in my freshman year of high school had the last name Marshall.

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting that a few people mentioned martial law as an immediate connotation of "martial"... my first thought is martial arts, as someone said above, and it is used in so many other instances as well. As it is, the word martial in general just means "warlike" or "warrior-like" which has been a popular name meaning for boys throughout history.

I don't think Marshall is a bad name, I just don't prefer it, and wouldn't want it for my own child. I know a little boy named Marshall and he's a sweetheart, but I still just don't like the spelling much.

[fullcollapse.livejournal.com]

I actually know a Martial. I think he's in his very early 20's right now... which makes me feel old, because I met him when he was 12. Everyone always had a "woah, you spell it that way? Awesome!" moment but no insane reactions. It's just different. I have no idea why his parents chose that spelling. Marshall/etc isn't my style but I sort of think Martial is pretty nice.

[eveyalecia.livejournal.com]

Yay, a Martial-pronounced-Marshall exists! That makes me feel less crazy for even bringing this up. :) Thank you for sharing, and I think it's nice, too!