Mini lesson: Roman naming conventions

Roman nam­ing con­ven­tions typ­i­cal­ly had three main parts.

Praenō­men: The first name, like a per­son­al name (e.g. “C.” is short for Gāius. The abbre­vi­a­tion C. for Gāius is a rel­ic of ear­ly Latin orthog­ra­phy, when the let­ter C was used for both the /k/ and /g/ sounds. Even after the let­ter G was intro­duced, the tra­di­tion­al abbre­vi­a­tion was pre­served, show­cas­ing the Romans’ adher­ence to estab­lished cus­toms.).

Nōmen: The fam­i­ly name, which iden­ti­fied the gēns (e.g. Cornēlius). A Roman gēns was a fun­da­men­tal social and famil­ial unit in Roman soci­ety, con­sist­ing of a group of fam­i­lies who shared a com­mon name (nōmen) and claimed descent from a com­mon ances­tor. The con­cept of the gēns was cen­tral to Roman iden­ti­ty, pol­i­tics, and social orga­ni­za­tion.

Cognō­men: An addi­tion­al name, often describ­ing a branch of the fam­i­ly or a per­son­al trait (e.g. Cras­sus, mean­ing “fat” or “thick”).

Anoth­er exam­ple (C. Iūlius Cae­sar): C. (Gāius, his per­son­al name) Iūlius (he belonged to the gēns Iūlia) Cae­sar (a branch iden­ti­fi­er with­in the gēns Iūlia; the exact ori­gin of the name is uncer­tain).