Marius

Marius is the old Roman gens name that produced, among others, Gaius Marius, the seven-time consul who reorganized the legions at the turn of the first century BCE. The etymology is contested — possibly linked to Mars, possibly to mas, male — but the name has long since shed its military grit. It remains current in Romania, Germany, and Scandinavia, and Victor Hugo gave it literary weight through young Marius Pontmercy in Les Misérables, the student revolutionary who loves Cosette from across a Paris barricade. Three syllables, MAH-ree-us. The name reads bookish and continental, a boy's name with a half-unbuttoned collar and unfinished poems in his jacket pocket.