The sound of long ancient Roman names is mesmerizing. There is something noble and sublime in them. Meanwhile, the fact that every free Roman had three names is not accidental. From them it was possible to learn a lot about a person: what family he came from, what they called him in the people, and sometimes about the business he is engaged in.
What parts did the name of the ancient Roman consist of?
The name of a free citizen of Ancient Rome traditionally consisted of three parts: a personal name or pronomen, the name of a clan or nomen, a nickname or cognomen. There were few personal ancient Roman names. Of the 72 that have come down to our time, only 18 were most often used. Personal names in letters were indicated in abbreviations, since they did not carry special information about the origin and life of a person. The most popular Roman names were: Aulus, Appius, Gaius, Gneus, Decimus, Caeson, Lucius, Mark, Manius, Mamercus, Numerius, Publius, Quintus, Sextus, Servius, Spurius, Titus, Tiberius. The name of the genus and the nickname were written in full. Generic names have had numerous variations. Historians count about a thousand Roman nomens. Some of them had a certain meaning, for example: Porcius - "pig", Fabius - "bob", Caecilius - "blind", etc.
Generic nicknames testified to the high origin of the Roman. Citizens from the plebeian, lower strata of society, for example, the military, did not have it. In the ancient patrician clans, there were a large number of offshoots. Each of them was assigned a nickname. The choice of the cognomen was often based on the characteristics of a person's appearance or character. For example, the Cicero got their nickname from one of the ancestors, whose nose was like a pea (cicero).
By what principle were names given in ancient Rome
According to the established tradition, personal names were assigned to the four eldest sons, and the first of them received the name of the father. If there were many sons in the family, then everyone, starting from the fifth, received names denoting ordinal numbers: Quint ("Fifth"), Sextus ("Sixth"), etc. Also, the boy was given a name and a nickname of the genus, if only he came from a noble family.
If the child was born from a mistress or after the death of his father, then he was given the name Spurius, which means "illegitimate, controversial." The name was abbreviated with the letter S. Such children legally did not have a father and were considered members of the civil community to which their mother was.
Girls were called by the generic name of their father in the form of a feminine gender. For example, Gaius Julius Caesar's daughter was called Julia, and Mark Tullius Cicero's was Tullia. If there were several daughters in the family, then the prenomen was added to the girl's personal name: Major ("senior"), Minor ("youngest"), and then Tertia ("third"), Quintilla ("fifth"), etc. When getting married, a woman, in addition to her personal name, received the nickname of her husband, for example: Cornelia filia Cornelli Gracchi, which means "Cornelia, daughter of Cornelia, wife of Gracchus."
The slave was named according to the area from which he was born ("Sire, from Syria"), according to the names of the heroes of ancient Roman myths ("Achilles"), or according to the names of plants or precious stones ("Adamant"). Slaves who did not have personal names were often named according to their owner, for example: Marcipuer, which means "Mark's slave." If freedom was granted to a slave, he received the personal and family name of the former owner, and the personal name became a nickname. For example, when Cicero freed his secretary Tyrone from slavery, he became known as M Tullius M libertus Tiro, which means "Mark Tullius, a former slave of Mark Tyrone."
