Roman naming conventions

In the naming convention used in ancient Rome, derived from that of the Etruscan civilization, the names of male patricians normally consist of three parts (tria nomina): the praenomen (given name), nomen gentile (name of the gens or clan) and cognomen (belonging to a family within the gens). Sometimes a second cognomen (called agnomen) was added. A male who was adopted also showed his "filiation" (see Augustus). For female names, there are a few differences.

History

In the early regal period of Rome, it appears that people were at first referred to by only a single name. As Rome grew and occupied more land and governed more people, the use of a second, family name came into use. By the earliest days of the Republic, every member of the household would have at least two names, their given name (praenomen) and the genitive form of the pater familias, which was a fixed and inherited nomen. This is significant in several ways: first because it was genuinely unique among Indo-European languages of that era to have advanced to a point where binomial nomenclature was needed; secondly because – as the words used imply – the core element of the name (nomen) was not the individual's given name (praenomen) but rather the inherited gens name. This is probably the cause of the minuscule number of praenomina that were used.

Later in the Republican period, a further refinement was added as the importance of the gens grew and the size of each voting tribe was such that differentiation within the gens became of important. The most common naming system used by the patricians (the nobility of the day), known as the Tria Nomina, consisted of three parts: praenomen, nomen and cognomen.

The praenomen roughly equates to the given, or Christian, name of today. It was a personal appellation given to an infant on their day of lustration. Compared to most cultures, Romans used a tiny number of different prænomina: most people were given names from a list of fewer than forty, reduced to about 18 in the late Republic. Some gentes used only a few of these prænomina, and some of the praenomina in turn were used only in one gens. The pater familias often named infants after himself, in masculine or feminine form (Lucius, Lucia). Most praenomina are masculine o-stem (nominative in -us) or feminine a-stem nouns.

Although the Tria Nomina system of naming can be shown to date back as early as the latter half of the fifth century BCE, it was especially slow to take root, with the Tria Nomina not appearing in official documents until the late second century BCE and are not commonplace until the time of Sulla, right before the Imperial period. The pattern was even more slowly adopted by the non-patrician families, with the first examples of cognomina for the plebians dating to c. 125 BCE and not becoming popular for another century.

See Byzantine Empire for information on the Byzantine history. A simple summary of the history of the Roman name in the Eastern Empire is that the old Roman culture over time faded and was replaced by Greek, for the language, culture, and the names.

Praenomen

This form of "first" name, except for familiar or friendly use, was relatively unimportant, and was not frequently used on its own. Relatively few praenomina were commonly known in both the Republican and Imperial eras of Rome. Only a handful of such names, such as Marcus (as Mark) and Lucius (and its feminine form Lucia), survived into modern English, though many more occur in modern Romance Languages.

Many of the praenomina used by male citizens were abbreviated to one or two characters in writing or inscriptions; the more common abbreviations include: Appius (Ap.), Aulus (A.), Flavius (Fl.), Gaius (C.), Gnaeus (Cn.), Decimus (D.) Lucius (L.), Manius (M'.), Marcus (M.), Publius (P.), Quintus (Q.) Servius (Ser.), Sextus (Sex.), Spurius (Sp.), Titus (T.), Tiberius (Ti.). The names Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quintus, Sextus, Septimus, Octavius, and Decimus mean, respectively, 'first', 'second', 'third', 'fifth', 'sixth', 'seventh', 'eighth', and 'tenth', and were originally given to second, third, etc. sons in birth order. There are, however, abundant examples of this birth-number significance being later lost: Sextus Pompeius, for instance, was not a sixth son. A possible explanation for this is that the numerical praenomen came instead to stand for the number of the month in which the person was born.

Nomen gentile

The second name or nomen gentile is the name of the gens (the family clan), in masculine form for men. The original gentes were descended from the family groups that settled Rome. These eventually developed into entire clans, which covered specific geographic regions. As the area of Rome expanded the number of tribes also expanded, so that not all tribes were from original settlers. Some were named for Etruscan families, while others were from local tribes or from major geographical features, such as rivers. Well-known nomina include many of the familiar names of ancient Rome, such as Aemilius, Claudius, Cornelius, Domitius, Julius, Antonius and Valerius.

Cognomen

The third name, or cognomen, began as a nickname or personal name that distinguished individuals within the same Gens (the cognomen does not appear in official documents until around 100 BC). During the Roman Republic and Empire, the cognomen is inherited from father to son, serving to distinguish a family within a Gens. Often the cognomen was chosen based on some physical or personality trait, sometimes with ironic results: Julius Caesar's cognomen meant hairy (cf. etymology of the name of Julius Caesar) although he was balding, and Tacitus's cognomen meant silent, while he was a well-known orator.

Agnomen

A distinction could even be made in families, a second cognomen (called agnomen) being added. A few of these were inherited like the cognomen, thus establishing a sub-family within a family. The majority, however, were used as nicknames. . See List of Imperial Roman victory titles for a good list of agnomina. A few examples include Africanus, Asiaticus, Augustus (for Emperors), Britannicus, Caligula, Germanicus, and Imperator.

Adoption

When a Roman man was adopted into another family (a common event due to the small number of children most families had), his name would become the adopted father's full name, plus a cognomen identifying his birth family. Examples from Roman history:

Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus, the biological son of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, adopted into the family Cornelius Scipio.
Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus (Princeps senatus in the 1st century BC), born as the son of a certain Livius, adopted into the Aemilii Lepidi.

See adoption in Rome.

Foreign names

As Rome continued to conquer territories beyond the Italian peninsula, many foreign names were introduced. Discharged auxiliary soldiers and others gaining Roman Citizenship could, and many would, continue to use at least a portion of their former names. A number of the names below are of Greek origin, while others came from regions that were brought under Roman influence. Non-citizen auxiliary soldiers who were granted citizenship often adopted the nomen gentile of their Emperor, adding their native name as a cognomen.

Female names

There is inscriptional evidence to show that in the earliest period there were female versions of the praenomina and that women's names presumably consisted of a praenomen and nomen gentile followed by filiation. By the time of the historically attested Republic, women no longer normally had praenomina. Instead, they were officially known only by the feminine form of their father's nomen gentile. If further description was needed, the name was followed by the genitive of her father's cognomen or, after marriage, of that of her husband. Hence, Cicero speaks of a woman as Annia P. Anni senatoris filia (Annia the daughter of P. Annius the senator). If only two daughters survived they could be distinguished as maior and minor. Marcus Antonius's daughters were known as Antonia maior (grandmother of the emperor Nero) and Antonia minor (mother of the emperor Claudius). If a family had more than two daughters, they were distinguished by ordinal numbers: Cornelia Quinta, the fifth daughter of a Cornelius. By the late Republic, women also adopted the feminine form of their father's cognomen (e.g., Caecilia Metella Crassi, daughter of Q. Caecilius Metellus and wife of P. Licinius Crassus). This feminized cognomen was often made a diminutive (e.g. Augustus's wife Livia Drusilla was the daughter of a M. Livius Drusus).

Additional elements and examples

In the beginning, the praenomen and nomen gentile constituted a Roman's full name and were followed by the so-called filiation (a patronymic or indication of paternity). The filiation (patronimicus) consisted of the Latin word for "son" filius (abbreviated by the letter f.) preceded by the abbreviation of the father's praenomen, which was understood in the genitive. Hence, a Roman might have been known as M. Antonius M. f. (=Marci filius), that is, Marcus Antonius, the son of Marcus. Additionally it could also indicate the grandfather with the word "grandson" nepos (abbreviated by the letter n.). By the Middle Republic, the abbreviation for tribe in which the man was enrolled was added after his filiation. When this became an official part of the name is not known.

Tribes

A tribe was not an indication of common ancestry; the tribes were distributed geographically and a man belonged to the tribe in which his main residence was located. The tribe was an essential part of citizenship, since voting was often carried out by tribe. With the expansion of the Empire, the number of tribes also expanded. See List of Roman Tribes.

Sample analysis of a complete name

Analysis of the example of a complete name: Marcus Aurelius Marci f. Quinti n. tribu Galeria Antoninus Pius, domo Caesaraugusta.

praenomen: Marcus
nomen gentile: Aurelius (he belongs to Gens Aurelia, the Aurelii in plural)
patronimicus: son of Marcus
grandparent: grandson of Quintus

tribe: Galeria (a tribe from the region of Caesaraugusta in Hispania)
cognomen: Antoninus (family of the Antonini)
agnomen: Pius (probably because of his piety... Rarely inherited)
city: Caesaraugusta (ancient Saragossa or Zaragoza in Hispania)

In everyday use, people were referred to by either a combination of the praenomen and nomen gentile, or even more usually by just their cognomen. So, "Marcus Livius Drusus" would either be just "Drusus" or "Marcus Livius". "Iulia Marciana" would be just "Iulia". This has created a host of problems for modern scholars, since in many cases we no longer have the contemporaneous context that would have made it obvious which person was actually meant, and in some of these cases accurate identification has never been possible.

References

http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/roman_names.html
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/roman/
http://www.behindthename.com/nmc/rom-anci.php (List of Roman Derived Names)
http://www.novaroma.org/via_romana/names2.html
Cambridge Latin Course, University of Cambridge Press 2004, ISBN 0521782309
Liberati, Anna Maria and Bourbon, Fabio (2005), Barnes and Noble Press, ISBN 0760762341

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