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Roman Names

Men's Names

Originally a Roman name consisted of three elements: a personal name and name indicating the clan to which he belonged, and the indication of his father's praenomen. This system is unique to the peoples of ancient Italy. Where and when this system arose is unknown.

1) Personal Name

The praenomen was the personal name. The Romans had less than thirty of them in total and only about ten were at all common. They were normally abbreviated:

(In C. and Cn., the use of the letter C to represent the sound G shows an archaic use of the letter's original pronunciation.)

Certain praenomens were maintained only among particular patrician families: App.=Appius, Ser.=Servius. The names of the kings all have the appearance of a regular Roman name, but their praenomens are often not among the normal ones of the later period: Numa, Tullus, Ancus. The attested nomen Tullius seems to be derived from a praenomen Tullus just as the nomen Marcius is derived from the praenomen Marcus, which suggests that there had been a praenomen Tullus, even though no such praenomen is attested in historical period. This peculiarity of praenomens perhaps lends credibility at least to the names of the kings: if the names had been made up, more regular ones would have been chosen.

2) Nomen

The second element, the nomen, was in origin the name of a man's gens or clan. Everyone of freeborn origin supposedly originally went back to some common ancestor, though foreigners made citizens and freed slaves adopted regular Roman names. Native Roman nomens regularly end in -ius: (Julius, Tullius, Sempronius, Quinctilius), though by the late Republic one encounters other endings (esp. those of Etruscan origin).

3) Filiation

In the beginning the praenomen and nomen constituted a Roman's full name and were followed by the so-called filiation (a patronymic or indication of paternity). The filiation consisted of the Latin word for "son" filius (abbreviated by the latter f.) preceeded 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.

4) Tribal designation

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. By the 242 the number of tribes was fixed at 35. 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.

5) Cognomen

As can be imagined, this system could be rather confusing, given the small number of praenomens and nomens. Hence, men acquired nicknames to distinguish themselves from other men of the same name. These nicknames eventually became inherited by a man's sons and thus became the mark of individual families. As such, they constituted the third element of a Roman's name, the cognomen. Their secondary origin as nicknames is shown both by their position following the filiation and by the fact that some families never acquired them during the Republic, such as that of L. Opimius or that of M. Antonius. As nicknames, the cognomina tended to refer to physical or mental characteristics: Catus, Cato and Catullus all derive from catus meaning clever; Crispus (curly), Longus (tall) and Niger (black, i.e., dark-complexioned or dark-haired).

The origin of cognomens as nicknames is reflected in the fact that they do not appear in official documents until around 100 BC. The fact that cognomens are regularly used in the Fasti for the consuls of the earliest period of the Republic is evidence that the Fasti were in some form revised at a late date.

5a) Agnomen

Among the nobility, a distinction could even be made in families, a second cognomen being added which his descendants would bear, thus establishing a sub-family within a family. Such a second cognomen is called an agnomen. An example of this is Cornelii Scipiones Nasicae, who distinguished from the Cornelii Scipiones Africani. The Africani represent a very particular kind of agnomen. The name who conquered a foreign people was given an honorific agnomen derived from the name or location of that people, and his ancestors would inherit the agnomen. Being a member of the Cornelii Scipiones, P. Cornelius Scipio acquired the agnomen Africanus for having defeated the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War.

Under the Republic, because most nomina were fairly common, the higher aristocracy tended to dispense with their nomen, using their distinctive cognomen in its place. Hence, for instance, C. Caesar without Iulius.

Women's Names