The System of Roman Naming

THE SYSTEM OF ROMAN NAMING PRAENOMEN NOMEN COGNOMEN AGNOMEN A(ulus) Agrippa AP(pius) C(aeus) CN(aeus) D(ecimus) Faustus Hostus Lar K(aeso) L(ucius) M(arcus) M' (=Manius) MAM(ercus) N(umerius) Opiter Paullus Postumus Proculus P(ublius) Q(uintus) SEX(tus) SER(vius SP(urius) T(itus) TI(berius) Vopiscus AELIUS PETRONIUS AEMILIUS PLAUTIUS ANNIUS POMPEIUS ANTONIUS POMPONIUS AURELIUS PLINIUS CLAUDIUS PONTIUS CORNELIUSQUINCTIUS DOMITIUS ROSCIUS FABIUS RUTILIUS FLAVIUS SALVIUS FULVIUS SENTIUS HELVIUS SEPTIMIUS IULIUS SULPICIUS IUNIUS TERENTIUS LICINIUS TULLIUS LUCRETIUS ENNIUS MANILIUS LIVIUS MARCIUS HORATIUS MARIUS VERGILIUS NIGIDIUS VALERIUS NOVIUS SALLUSTIUS OCTAVIUS OVIDIUS ATTICUS CAESAR CICERO CATO CORBULO CAUDEX CRISPUS COTTA CATULLUS CAECUS CURIO FELIX FLACCUS LONGINUS MAXIMUS MARCELLUS MARTIALIS NERO PAULINUS PERTINAX PRIMUS PRISCUS PULCHER SULLA SCIPIO SECUNDUS RUFUS VARUS Britannicus Macedonicus Balearicus Africanus Asiaticus Dalmaticus Germanicus Gothicus Creticus Parthicus etc. any nomen, dropping the -ius and adding -ianus: Octavianus Domitianus Aelianus Aemilianus Fabianus Iulianus Vergilianus Valerianus etc. EXAMPLES: Marcus Tullius Cicero Caius Iulius Caesar Cnaeus Cornelius Scipio Africanus Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator Publius Vergilius Maro Caius Iulius Caesar Titus Pomponius Atticus Octavianus Cnaeus Pompeius Magnus TERMINOLOGY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY NAMES • • • • PRAENOMEN: personal name, given name; only parents, siblings, wife and very closest friends would use this name to the person's face; females had no praenomina. Note the appearance of numbers: Quintus, Sextus, Decimus. NOMEN: the 'clan' name, the indispensible part of a person's nomenclature. COGNOMEN: an 'additional' name, which distinguished branches of a clan from each other; the patrician Cornelii, for example, had at least eight cognomina. Many appear to be humorous, e.g. Cicero: 'chickpea'/'garbanzo'; Naso: 'the nose'; Caesar: 'hairy'; Caecus: 'blind'; Flaccus: 'fatty'. AGNOMEN: a 'supplementary' name, to distinguish further between branches, or sometimes to celebrate military conquest, or sometimes to indicate an adoption (by making the birth-family name into an adjective to follow the adopted-family name). BIBLIOGRAPHY: • • • • • • T. J. Cadoux, "Names, personal," Oxford Classical Dictionary 2nd. edition (Oxford 1970) pp. 720-721. A.E. Gordon, Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University ofCalifornia, 1983) pp. 17-30. Ernst Fraenkel, "Die latinischen Personennamen," Pauly-WissowaMittelhaus-Kroll, Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft 16:3 (1935), col. 1611 ff. I. Kajanto, Latin Cognomina (1965). V. J. Mathews, "Some Puns on Latin cognomina," Greece and Rome 20 (1973) 20-24. C. J. Smith, Roman Clan: The Gens from Ancient Ideology to Modern Anthropology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2006).