Roman male and female names and their meaning. Beautiful Roman names for women and men: list, origin and features Roman names and what they mean

02.02.2022 Diseases

What would your name be in ancient Rome?

A name system is needed to identify people in any society, and even in our free times it is subject to certain rules. It was easier for people to decide on the names of their children - rules and traditions greatly narrowed the room for maneuver in this area.

If there was no male heir in the family, the Romans often adopted one of their relatives, who, when entering into an inheritance, took the personal name, family name and cognomen of the adopter, and retained his own surname as an agnomen with the suffix “-an”. For example, the destroyer of Carthage was born as Publius Aemilius Paulus, but was adopted by his cousin- Publius Cornelius Scipio, whose son and heir died. So Publius Aemilius Paulus became Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus and, after he destroyed Carthage, received the agnomen Africanus the Younger to distinguish himself from his grandfather Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus. Then, after the war in modern Spain, he received another agnomen - Numantine. Gaius Octavius, having been adopted by his grandmother's brother Gaius Julius Caesar and having entered into an inheritance, became Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian, and subsequently also received the agnomen Augustus.

Slave names

The unequal position of slaves was emphasized by the fact that they were addressed by their personal names. If officiality was necessary, after the personal name of the slave, as a rule, the family name of his owner was indicated in the genitive case and with the abbreviation ser or s (from the word serv, i.e. slave) and/or occupation. When selling a slave the nomen or cognomen of its former owner was retained by him with the suffix “-an”.

If a slave was set free, then he received both pronomen and nomen - respectively, the names of the one who freed him, and as cognomen - his personal name or profession. For example, in the trial against Roscius the Younger, his intercessor Marcus Tullius Cicero essentially accused Sulla’s freedman, Lucius Cornelius Chrysogonus. Between the nomen and cognomen of freedmen, the abbreviations l or lib were written from the word libertin (freedman, freed).

NAME, SURNAME, NICKNAME OF THE ROMAN

The name is fortune telling.

Roman proverb

Thorough, striving to put everything and everywhere on a legal basis, the Romans attached much greater importance than the Greeks to “surnames” - family names passed on from generation to generation. This was primarily due to the social and political differences that initially existed in Rome between the full-fledged patrician clans and the plebeian clans, which still had to achieve political full rights in the city. Initially, the Roman made do with two names: personal (prenomen) and generic ("nomen gentile"). In the era of the republic and later, they began to call him by three names: a family nickname (cognomen) was added, and sometimes a person received another nickname - an individual one. You don’t need to look far for examples: let’s remember at least Marcus Tullius Cicero, Gaius Julius Caesar, Publius Ovid Naso, Quintus Horace Flaccus, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus the Elder.

There were few personal names in Rome:

The small number of these names made it possible in documents, inscriptions, literary works denote them by generally accepted abbreviations - one or several first letters of the name. The most common names were Marcus, Publius, Lucius, Quintus, Gaius, Gnaeus, Titus; the rest are less common. Some personal names are formed simply from numerals: Quintus (fifth), Sextus (sixth), Decimus (tenth) - which perhaps speaks of the poor imagination of the Romans in this area, especially if we recall the beautiful, varied, eloquent names of the Greeks.

Gaius Julius Caesar. Marcus Tullius Cicero

There were significantly more family names: Claudius, Julius, Licinius, Tullius, Valery, Emilius and many others. Each genus included several large families: Thus, the families of the Scipios, Rufini, Lentuli, Cetegi belonged to the Cornelian family, and the “nomen gentile” Aemilius was worn by members of the families of Paul and Lepidus.

Some personal names were the exclusive property of certain families: for example, the name Appius is found only in the Claudian family, and the praenomen Mamercus was monopolized by representatives of the Aemilian family. If someone stained his family with some shameful act, then his name was no longer used in this family. Thus, in the Claudian family we will not find the name Lucius, but in the Manlian family from 383 BC. e. There was a ban on the name Mark, after the patrician Marcus Manlius, the winner of the Aequi in 392 BC. e. and the defender of the Capitol during the Gaulish invasion of Rome, decisively spoke out for the rights of the plebeians, thereby provoking the furious hatred of the Roman patricians, including his own relatives. He was recognized as a "traitor of his kind" ( Livy. From the foundation of the city, VI, 20), and from now on members of the Manlian family were forbidden to name their children by his name.

When the clan grew and separate families were distinguished within it, the need for cognomen arose. The first family nicknames arose among the patricians and were associated with the main occupations of the Romans at that time - agriculture and cattle breeding. The nickname Pilumnus goes back to the word “pilum” - pestle; Pizon - from the verb “piso” or “pinzo” - to pound, to grind. From names cultivated plants originate from the family nicknames of Cicero ("Citser" - peas), Lentulov ("lens" - lentils). In the Yuniev family there is a nickname Bubulk - a boot-herder, since the first representatives of this genus were known for breeding oxen. Other cognomen reflect any characteristic feature of a person: Cato - dexterous, cunning; Brutus - inert, dull; Cincinnatus is curly.

Already in the era of the republic, some prominent citizens had, as mentioned above, not three, but four names. The fourth was an additional nickname (agnomen), which was assigned for outstanding feats or for the exemplary and memorable performance of certain official duties by people. Publius Cornelius Scipio, winner of Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC. e., received the honorary nickname African. Marcus Porcius Cato, who became famous for his activities as a censor, remained in history as Cato the Censor. Such nicknames could even be inherited by the hero’s eldest son, but over time this custom was abandoned.

Initially, when a young Roman was included in the list of citizens or in other official documents, only his personal name and the full three-part name of his father in the genitive case were recorded. Subsequently, the practice changed to include all three names of the new citizen along with the name of his father. In the inscriptions one can also find indications of the name of the grandfather or even great-grandfather: “son of Marcus”, “grandson of Publius”, etc. Caesar, wanting to bring more order to the administrative affairs of the state, decided in his municipal law of 49 BC. e., so that in the acts not only all three names of the citizen are given, but also the name of his father, and in addition, it is noted which city tribe the person belongs to. (Rome has long been divided into 35 tribes.) Consequently, in official documents the citizen was named as follows: “Marcus Tullius, son of Marcus, grandson of Marcus, great-grandson of Marcus, from the tribe Cornelia, Cicero” or “Marcus Metilius, son of Gaius, from the Pomptine tribe, Marcellinus."

Daughters were called the father's family name in the feminine form: the daughter of the same Mark Tullius Cicero was called Tullia, the daughter of Terence - Terence, etc. Sometimes a prenomen was added, which came mainly from the numerals: Tertia (third), Quintilla (fifth). Married woman retained her name - “nomen gentile”, but her husband’s family nickname in the genitive case was added to it. In official documents it looked like this: “Terence, daughter of Terence (wife) of Cicero” or “Livia Augusta”, i.e. the wife of Augustus. During the imperial era, women often had double names, for example: Aemilia Lepida.

A Roman could become a member of another clan through adoption (“adoptio”), in which case he took the full threefold name of the adoptive parent, and retained his own clan name as a second cognomen with the addition of a suffix - an(us). So, Paul Emilius, after he was adopted by Publius Cornelius Scipio, began to be called: Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilian, and Titus Pomponius Atticus, a friend of Cicero, adopted by his uncle Quintus Caecilius, kept his family nickname, turning into Quintus Caecilius Pomponianus Atticus . Sometimes not only the family nickname, but also the family name of the adopted person was preserved unchanged as cognomen: when Gaius Plinius Secundus adopted his nephew Publius Caecilius Secundus, he began to be called Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus. It also happened that the son received a nickname from the mother’s family name; this was intended to emphasize the close union of the two families: for example, Servius Cornelius Dolabella Petronius bore the family name and cognomen of his father, Cornelius Dolabella, but he inherited the second nickname from his mother, whose name was Petronia. So, we see that there was no strictly defined order in the Roman anthroponymic nomenclature and, say, the origin of the second family nickname was very different in different cases.

Christianity, trying to break away from the pagan tradition of names, decisively introduced unusual, artificially created and sometimes quite bizarre designs into the nomenclature, going back to Christian ritual formulas and prayers. It is enough to give a few examples: Adeodata - “given by God”, Deogracias - “thanksgiving to God” and even Quodvultdeus - “what God wants.”

As in Greece, in Rome slaves could keep the names given to them at birth. More often, however, in houses and estates, slaves were distinguished by their origin, and then the ethnikon replaced the personal name: Sir, Gall, etc. Slaves were also called “puer” - boy, combining this designation with the name of the master in the genitive case. Thus, the slave of Mark (Marzi puer) became Marzipor, and the slave of Publius (Publii puer) became Publipor.

A slave, set free, a freedman, took the generic and sometimes personal name of his master, who granted him freedom, but retained his own name as a cognomen. Andronicus, a Greek from Tarentum, one of the founders of Roman literature (III century BC), received freedom from Livius Salinator, and with it the traditional Roman three-term name: Lucius Livius Andronicus. Tyrone, an educated slave and secretary of Cicero, having gained freedom, began to be called Marcus Tullius Tyrone. It also happened differently. A Roman who freed his slave could grant him not his own family name, but the “nomen gentile” of another person with whom he maintained friendly and family ties. One of Cicero’s slaves, Dionysius, having become a freedman, received the name Marcus Pomponius Dionysius: Cicero gave him his personal name, and borrowed the family name from his friend Atticus, who highly valued the educated Dionysius.

A slave who was freed by a woman took the personal and family name of her father, and in addition, official acts indicated to whom he owed his freedom: for example, Marcus Livius, Augusta’s freedman, Ismar.

Let us add, finally, that many foreigners sought to pass themselves off as Roman citizens at any cost and, perhaps, that is why they willingly accepted Roman names, especially family names. Only Emperor Claudius strictly forbade people of foreign origin from appropriating Roman family names, and for attempting to fraudulently pass oneself off as a Roman citizen, the culprit was subject to the death penalty ( Suetonius. Divine Claudius, 25).

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The topic of these names is vast and you can delve into it for a very long time - naming traditions have changed over the course of one and a half millennia, and each clan had its own quirks and customs. But I tried and simplified it all for you into ten interesting points. I think you'll like:

1. The classical name of a Roman citizen consisted of three parts:

The personal name, "prenomen", was given by the parents. It is similar to today's names.

The clan name, “nomen” is something like our surnames. Belonging to an old noble family meant a lot.

An individual nickname, “cognomen”, was often given to a person for some kind of merit (not necessarily good), or was passed down by inheritance.

For example, the most famous Roman, Gaius Julius Caesar, had Gaius as his prenomen, Julius as his nomen, and Caesar as his cognomen. Moreover, he inherited all three parts of his name from his father and grandfather, both of whom had exactly the same name - Gaius Julius Caesar. So “Julius” is not a name at all, but rather a surname!

2. In general, it was a tradition for the eldest son to inherit all his father's names. Thus, he also took over the status and titles of his parent, continuing his work. The remaining sons were usually given different prenomen, so as not to confuse the children. As a rule, they were called the same as their father's brothers.

But they only bothered with the first four sons. If more of them were born, then the rest were simply called by number: Quintus (fifth), Sextus (sixth), Septimus (seventh), etc.

Eventually, due to the continuation of this practice for many years, the number of popular praenomen narrowed from 72 to a small handful of repeated names: Decimus, Gaius, Caeso, Lucius, Marcus, Publius, Servius and Titus were so popular that they were usually abbreviated with just the first letter . Everyone immediately understood what it was about.

3. Society Ancient Rome clearly divided into plebeians and patricians. And although there were sometimes cases where families of distinguished plebeians achieved aristocratic status, a much more common method of social advancement was adoption into a noble family.

Usually this was done to prolong the lineage of an influential person, which means that the adopted person had to take the name of the new parent. At the same time, his previous name turned into a nickname-cognomen, sometimes in addition to the existing cognomen of his adoptive father.

Thus, Gaius Julius Caesar adopted in his will his great-nephew, Gaius Octavius Furius, and he, having changed his name, began to be called Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian. (Later, as he seized power, he added several more titles and nicknames.)

4. If a person did not inherit the cognomen from his father, then he spent the first years of his life without it until he somehow distinguished himself from his relatives.

During the late Republic, people often chose out-of-fashion praenomen as cognomen. For example, at the dawn of the Roman state there was a popular praenomen "Agrippa". As the centuries passed, its popularity waned, but the name was revived as a cognomen among some influential families of the late Republican period.

A successful cognomen was fixed for many generations, creating a new branch in the family - this was the case with Caesar in the Julian family. Also, each family had its own traditions on the topic of what kongnomen its members appropriated.

5. All Roman names had masculine and feminine forms. This extended not only to personal praenomen, but also to surnames-nomens and nicknames-cognomens. For example, all women from the Julian clan were called Julia, and those who had the cognomen Agrippa were called Agrippina.

When a woman got married, she did not take her husband’s nomen, so it was difficult to confuse her with other family members.

6. But personal names, praenomen, were rarely used among women of the late Republic. And Cognomen too. Perhaps this was due to the fact that women did not take part in the public life of Rome, so there was no need for outsiders to distinguish between them. Be that as it may, most often, even in noble families, daughters were called simply the feminine form of their father's nomen.

That is, all the women in the Yuli family were Yulia. It was easy for parents to name their daughter, but others didn’t need it (until she got married). And if there were two daughters in the family, then they were called Yulia the Elder and Yulia the Younger. If three, then Prima, Second and Tertius. Sometimes the eldest daughter could be called "Maxima".

7. When a foreigner acquired Roman citizenship - usually upon completion military service- he usually took the name of his patron, or, if he was a freed slave, then the name of his former master.

During the period of the Roman Empire, there were many cases when a huge number of people immediately became citizens by imperial decree. According to tradition, they all took the name of the emperor, which caused considerable embarrassment.

For example, the Edict of Caracalla (this emperor received his cognomen from the name of the Gallic clothing - a long robe, the fashion for which he introduced) made all free people on its vast territory citizens of Rome. And all these new Romans accepted the imperial nomen Aurelius. Of course, after such actions, the meaning of these names greatly decreased.

8. Imperial names are generally something special. The longer the emperor lived and ruled, the more names he collected. These were mainly cognomen and their later variety, agnomen.

For example, Emperor Claudius's full name was Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.

Over time, "Caesar Augustus" became not so much a name as a title - it was adopted by those who sought imperial power.

9. Beginning with the early empire, praenomen began to fall out of favor, and were largely replaced by cognomen. This was partly due to the fact that there were few prenomen in use (see point 2), and family traditions increasingly dictated that all sons be named the father’s prenomen. Thus, from generation to generation, praenomen and nomen remained the same, gradually turning into a complex “surname”.

At the same time, it was possible to roam around on kongnomen, and after the 1st - 2nd centuries AD, they became real names in our understanding.

10. Starting from the 3rd century AD, the prenomen and nomen in general began to be used less and less. This was partly due to the fact that a bunch of people with the same names appeared in the empire - people who received citizenship en masse as a result of the imperial decree (see point 7) and their descendants.

Since cognomen had become a more personal name by this time, people preferred to use it.

The last documented use of the Roman nomen was in the early 7th century.

The name of a free citizen of Ancient Rome traditionally consisted of three parts: a personal name or pronomen, a clan name or nomen, a nickname or cognomen. There were few personal ancient Roman names. Of the 72 that have survived to our time, only 18 were most often used. Personal names on the letter were designated as , since they did not carry special information about the origin and life of a person. The most popular names were: Aulus, Appius, Gaius, Gnaeus, Decimus, Caeson, Lucius, Marcus, Manius, Mamercus, Numerius, Publius, Quintus, Sextus, Servius, Spurius, Titus, Tiberius. The family name and nickname were written in full. Generic names had numerous variations. Historians count about a thousand Roman nomen. Some of them had a specific meaning, for example: Porcius - “pig”, Fabius - “bean”, Caecilius - “blind”, etc.

Family 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 families there were a large number of branches. Each of them was given his own nickname. The choice of cognomen was often based on the person's appearance or character. For example, the Ciceros got their nickname thanks to one of their ancestors, whose nose was like a pea (cicero).

On what basis were names given in Ancient Rome?

According to established tradition, personal names were assigned to the four eldest sons, with the first of them receiving the father's name. If there were many sons in the family, then everyone, starting from the fifth, received names denoting ordinal numbers: Quintus (“Fifth”), Sextus (“Sixth”), etc. Also, the boy was given a name and nickname of the clan, if only he came from a noble family.

If a child was born from a mistress or after the death of his father, then he was given the name Spurius, “illegitimate, controversial.” The name was abbreviated as S. Such children legally had no father and were considered members of the civil community in which their mother belonged.

Girls were called by their father's generic name in the feminine form. For example, Gaius Julius Caesar's daughter was named Julia, and Marcus Tullius Cicero's daughter was called Tullia. If there were several daughters in the family, then a prenomen was added to the girl’s personal name: Major (“elder”), Minor (“younger”), and then Tertia (“third”), Quintilla (“fifth”), etc. When a woman got married, in addition to her personal name, she received her husband’s nickname, for example: Cornelia filia Cornelli Gracchi, which means “Cornelia, daughter of Cornelius, wife of Gracchus.”

The slave was named after the area from which he came (“Sir, from Syria”), after the names of heroes of ancient Roman myths (“Achilles”), or after the name of plants or precious stones (“Adamant”). Slaves who did not have personal names were often named after their owner, for example: Marcipuer, which means “slave of Mark.” If a slave was granted freedom, 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 Tiron from slavery, he began to be called M Tullius M libertus Tiro, which means “Marcus Tullius, the former slave of Marcus Tiron.”

Today, Roman names are not particularly popular. This is partly due to the fact that most of them are forgotten, and their meaning is completely unclear. If you delve into history, then at the dawn of time, children and adults were given names throughout their lives, and later they turned into family surnames. The peculiarity of Roman names still arouses genuine interest among historians.

Name structure

In ancient times, people, just like now, had a name consisting of three parts. Only if we are accustomed to calling a person by last name, first name and patronymic, then the Romans had slightly different features.

The first name in Roman sounded like praenomen. It was similar to our Petyas and Mishas. There were very few such names - only eighteen. They were used only for men and were rarely pronounced; in writing they were often indicated by one or two capital letters. That is, no one wrote them completely. Few meanings of these names have survived to this day. And it’s hard to find Appii, Gnaeus and Quintus among children these days.

In fact, his name was Octavian because he was adopted by the great emperor. But, having come to power, he omitted the first three parts, and soon added the title Augustus to his name (as a benefactor of the state).

Augustus Octavian had three daughters, Julia. Having no boy heirs, he had to adopt grandchildren, who were also called Julius Caesars. But since they were only grandchildren, they retained their names given at birth. Thus, the heirs Tiberius Julius Caesar and Agripa Julius Caesar are known in history. They became famous under the simple names of Tiberius and Agripa, founding their own clans. Thus, there is a tendency towards a decrease in the name and the disappearance of the need for parts nomen and coglomen.

It is very easy to get confused in the abundance of generic names. This is why Roman names are the most difficult to recognize in the world.