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[Opinions] Margaret
I am looking for another way to spell Margaret. I would like it to have 9 letters instead of 8, but I would like it to be pronounced the same. Would "Margarett" be too impossible? What about "Margarret?" Any other options?

This message was edited 7/3/2007, 10:15 PM

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kr8tiv spellings were not common in the lates 1800s, so it would look weird and would puzzle your readers. As others suggested, Margareta would be the best solution.
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Maybe Margareth?
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How about Margareta instead of Margaret? :)

This message was edited 7/4/2007, 12:07 AM

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I agreeThis would look better than the alternate Margaret spellings. But if you insist on using Margaret, then I would spell it correctly. That is just my opinion. But if you insist on 9 letters then consider Margareta like Snapdragon suggested.
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I'm guessing that this is because your other three character names (Augustine, Katherine and Georgiana) are 9-letter names.I have just one thing to say: please don't!Your readers are never going to notice that Margaret has a different number of letters to the other three names, nor will they care if they do happen to notice. But if you change the spelling, lovely classic Margaret is spoiled and the sibset becomes gimmicky instead of classy.Margaret is just fine the way it is!
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I understand...It's not a big deal, I was just wondering if there were any other reasonable options. I am not opposed to keeping it at 8 letters.
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Please...just don't
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First off: Why? Why on earth would OK, I'll ignore the inherent and imo severe problems misspelled names have for a moment, and will focus solely on how an eight-letter Margaret might look visually.Margarett would work OK, I think. It does look pseudo-Hungarian to me, as in Bernadett and Nikolett, so I think association with those legit names makes Margarett look better to me. It still looks a little physically unbalanced to me though.On the other hand, I suppose Marggaret would make the most phonetic sense, since the G sound is a little duplicated in the first and second syllables (at least how I say it). Still looks wrong to me though.Maargaret and Margaaret just look grossly wrong and unacceptably physically unbalanced to me. Margareet changes the pronunciation, so that's out too.EDIT: Oh, I see that this might be for a character. My tolerance for bad character names is a lot higher than it is for bad real person names. So the idea of an eight-lettered Margaret on a character isn't so much of a, er, bad thing to me as it would be if you were considering it for a real child. :-DBut I second Chrisell in that almost nobody will notice of Margaret's the odd seven-lettered name out. If they do, they'll probably think it's just coincidence that all your other characters have eight-lettered names. But they will notice the misspelling of Margaret, and I agree that then it does seem a little gimmicky to me. Moreover, unless you have a work in a good narrative reason, I think it would probably be very distracting and puzzling to me as a reader to see Margaret misspelled when no other names in the story are.

This message was edited 7/3/2007, 10:39 PM

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?Can I ask why?
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Sure : )I have a sibset for a story I am writing and all of the other girl's names have 9 letters and it just looks kind of funny:Katherine, Augustine, *Margaret, and Georgiana
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What about Genevieve? It has 9 letters and would fit the set, I think.
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