A-Z Day 13

Copyright ©2015 Mark Kelly.

M is for Mark.

My given name. Funny isn't it how names can, or used to be, indicators of a period when a person was born, reflecting what was most popular around their time of birth?

When I attended high school, Mark as a name popped up in almost every class of my year. A bit disheartening, when as a kid you think you're pretty unique only to be confronted by the first kid to have the same name, then another, and another and another.

The name Mark has its origins from old Latin "Mart-kos", meaning "consecrated to the god, Mars", and possibly also mean "God of War" or "to be warlike" - who? me? Never!

Mark is also a form of the name Marcus, which was one of the three most common given names in Ancient Rome. Saint Mark was the author of the second Gospel in the New Testament, and the patron saint of Venice, where he is supposedly buried.

Mainvision.com - the statue of the god, Mars.

 Though used in the Middle Ages, Mark was not common in the English-speaking world until the 19th century, when it began to be used alonside the classical form of Marcus. In the Celtic legend of Tristan and Isolde this was the name of a king of Cornwall (which I never knew, and oddly, my mother's parents were from Cornwall originally before settling down in South Wales, and my father's parents were from Devon).

Last factoid, the Amercian author Mark Twain (1835-1910), whose real name was Samuel Clemens, author of 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Huckleberry Finn', took his pen name from a call used by riverboat workers on the Mississippi River to indicate a depth of two fathoms (one fathom equals six feet).

For my time on this earth, I have so far been called the following: Marcus, Marco, Marky, Sparky, Marky-Mark and the Funky Bunch, and Markos. For some reason, the only one that bothers me is Marcus? Strange, but true.

I leave you now with one of my favourite tracks by Dire Straits (and Mark Knopfler) - the title track of the album, 'Brothers In Arms'. Enjoy.