@Throes:
That's the thing though, the japanese word kaigun directly translates to "Navy", so technically "Navy" is the more correct translation.
No. The name Marines/Navy mean the EXACT SAME THING as far as their origins go; it's only with the creation of a special Naval division known as "Marines" that people get confused. In fact, in certain languages (German/French) Marine means Navy.
Since we know Oda has never spelled "NAVY" in English, instead having Marines as his word of choice, it's pretty obvious MARINES is the name of One Piece's Navy. Oda's not giving them the title of "Marines", the NAME of the organization is "Marines", just like how the name of the One Piece unilateral government is the "World Government".
If Oda had intended his Marines to be referred to as the soldiers-on-a-boat that "modern" Marines are, he'd have called them the MARINE CORPS.
@Throes:
The Loguetown to Roguetown doesn't bother me other than the fact that it loses the double meaning, it being the town of the beginning and the end, and logue being derived from prologue and epilogue, the section at the beginning and end of a book.
Double entendres are my favourite element of Oda's writing, so I pretty much agree; I'm always really angry when Viz knocks off the "little things" and shoves off rewriting puns by omitting them entirely. However, in the end it doesn't matter and we of Arlong Park are here to promote the original, correct spelling.
@Throes:
The Zoro to Zolo translation doesn't bother me at all, unlike Loguetown it has no double meanings.
Actually it does; Zorro/Zorome.
@Fire Fist:
That's different, though. That's changing the entire word, not just one letter.
It's a change of one character, which is pretty much the same as Zoro/Zolo except it's a character in a different language.
@Fire Fist:
It does look like a bad spelling error, but it CAN work as a name. No, they can't sue for using the name Zoro, but they can sue for having a character who's a swordsman named Zoro. They'll try at least, America's funny like that. And it's too much of a headache when they can just change it.
It's not a question about making it "work", since any name could "work"; it's just that with the knowledge of the character Zorro or even the original Zoro, Zolo looks wrong to someone who has been reading the manga for some time, and it sounds silly to an English ear. It's just as annoying as Arsène Lupin battling wits against "Herlock Sholmes".
@Fire Fist:
What is the kanji used for Seakings anyway? I'll have to look into that. Yes, I know Loguetown is the "Prologue and Epilogue" town, but it just doesn't feel like a real name. Oda himself said he didn't know English back then, so he could've made a mistake in romanizing it. Oda uses the word and kanji for "Kaigun", which is Navy, not marines. Viz uses Naval Marines, which is actually correct.
I think Sea King is 海王, since that's what I see in the RAW of Volume 12. Regarding English, we can't speculate extensively on what Oda "wanted" to convey unless there's actual evidence, and thus far there's more evidence in favour of Loguetown (in addition to an English spelling) than Roguetown.
@Fire Fist:
Believe me, they sure as hell will try.
Ahh, no. Unless something gets outrageously popular (which OP isn't), a big corporation like Columbia Pictures wouldn't go out of its way to prosecute a comparably small company like VIZ Media in an expensive lawsuit. Stuff like Uri Geller attacking Nintendo would only work if Nintendo was trying to contain a nuclear explosion (like Pokemon).
@Fire Fist:
Alabasta actually makes more sense. I don't think there's a Japanese word for Alabaster (correct me if I'm wrong), so Oda tried to used the closest thing to it. Calcite was discovered in Alabastron, Egypt, a place of sand and ancient buildings, much like Alabasta/Arabasta. It was used as a building material for thousands of years.
I've made that argument in the past, and I agree; alabaster looks like a much more likely inspration for Arabasta's name given it's building colour, but again Oda has overwhelmingly spelled out the name as Arabasta, and even then we can derive some sort of double entendre from Oda's new spelling ("arab star").
Doesn't fit in with the theme of description-based naming ("Whisky Peak", "Little Garden", "Drum", "Skypiea", "Water 7" but at the very least there's a secondary interpretation.
@Throes:
The fable thing is kinda hokey, except that fables often star animals. We could take that to mean the 3 admirals or any of the Shichibukai. As for Loguetown being spelled out in English, read above. Oda didn't know English, so that could be how he romanized it.
Yeah, I agree with Elbaf; I've personally liked "Erubalu" but it's too long to spell out all the time.