What family you belonged to mattered greatly in Roman society. At certain periods in Roman history, it could even determine your legal rights. Thus it is no surprise that Roman names were not randomly chosen, but instead were meant to reveal a great deal about a person and his family. Most Roman men possessed a tripartite name. The three components were the praenomen, nomen, and cognomen.
The praenomen, equivalent to a modern first name and chosen by the parents shortly after a son's birth, was limited to only about 16 possibilities: Appius, Aulus, Decimus, Gaius, Gnaeus, Lucius, Manius, Marcus, Numerius, Publius, Quintus, Servius, Sextus, Spurius, Tiberius, and Titus.
The second name was the nomen. This was the name of a person's gens, or family. It was the most important section of one's name because it told who one's ancestors were. The nomen also determined whether one was a patrician or a plebeian.
The third name was the cognomen. It was a personal name that identified the particular branch of a family. These names were often, but not always, hereditary. They frequently referred to a physical characteristic or an action of some famous member of the family. One famous cognomen was Ahenobarbus, meaning "red beard." Others included Strabo "crosseyed," Verrucosus "warty," and Clodius "gimpy." Gaius Julius Caesar's cognomen in Latin means "hairy," which was ironic since Caesar himself was balding.
When it came to naming women, the only thing that the Romans viewed as important about them was their clan or family. Therefore, all
Daughters were named by simply giving them the female form of the nomen. The daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar, for example, would have been named Julia. What happened if he had a second daughter? The Roman solution was to call the older daughter Julia Maior (meaning "Julia the elder") and the younger one Julia Menor (meaning "Julia the younger"). If a man had even more daughters, he simply began to assign them numbers, starting with Julia Tertia ("Julia the third") and so on. In reality, many women probably used nicknames to avoid confusion.
Slaves also got only one name, which was chosen for them by their owner. Sometimes these names seem to have been given with a touch of irony, since one popular slave name was Felix, meaning "Lucky." When a male slave was freed, he took the praenomen and nomen of his ex-master, then added his slave name as cognomen. For example, the famous orator Marcus Tullius Cicero had a slave named Tiro who acted as his personal secretary. Eventually Cicero freed his faithful servant, who then went by the name Marcus Tullius Tiro. Thus, even when freed, slaves could not fully escape their former masters.
World History
