A Roman Citizen usually had three names. The first, or praenomen, designated the individual (like our given name); the second, or nomen, the gens or tribe; and the third, or cognomen, the family. Thus, Publius Cornelius Scipio was Publius of the Scipio family of the Cornelian gens, and Gaius Julius Caesar was Gaius of the Caesar family of the Julian gens. The gens, or clan, determined the nomen. The family line was determined by the father, as Rome was a patriarchal society, therefore the son had the same nomen as the father. Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus's father was also a Publius Cornelius Scipio. Many clans conferred social status throughout Roman history. The gens Cornelia (the noun gens is feminine, so all clan names are spoken about in their feminie form, i.e. ending with "a") was a patrician clan, while Caelia was a plebian clan.

1. During the time of Cicero there were only about 20 masculine praenomen in use, half of those being much more common than the other. Most praenomina were abbreviated to save time and space in writing, since everyone knew them. However, to make the options even less, most clans favored only certain praenomina, the Iuliae preferred Sextus, Gaius and Lucius; the Corneliae favored Publius and Lucius; while the Pompeiae favored Gnaeus, Quintus, and Sextus. The praenomen Appius was used only by the gens Claudia. In inscriptions and literature, the praenomen was often abbreviated as follows:

2. Sometimes a fourth (or fifth) name, an agnomen, was added, usually as a mark of honor or distinction - not everyone had one. For example, Scipio received the honorary agnomen Africanus because of his military victories in Africa during the Second Punic War. Hence his full name was -

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus.

More commonly, the cognomen was the name of a certain family in the more general clan. The Caesars were a family in the clan Iulia, while the Scipios were a family of the clan Cornelia. A Roman could have a limitless amount of cognomina. As noted above, these additional names were more often bestowed by friends, and denoted certain traits or deeds. Flaccus meant "big-ears", while Cicero meant "chick-pea (garbonzo bean)". The first Cicero was probably a garbonzo bean farmer. Scipio was invited to assume the cognomen Africanus after his victory in Africa.

Note -- the Romans of the classical period had no separate term for this additional name; it was generally referred to as a supplemental cognomen.The designation agnomen was an invention of later grammarians.

3. An adopted son took (l) the full name of his adoptive father, and (2) an agnomen ending in -anus formed from the name of his own gens. Thus, after being adopted by Julius Caesar, Octavian (Latin Octavius) took the name -

Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus.

Afterward the honorary title Augustus ("Revered One") was confered upon him as a second agnomen, making his full name -

Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus.

4. Women generally had no personal names, and were known only by the name of their gens. Thus the daughter of Julius Caesar was simply Julia; of Tullius Cicero, Tullia; of Cornelius Scipio, Cornelia. In cases where more than one daughter existed, they would all have the same name, and be designated by order of birth. For example, three daughters in any family of tbe Cornelian gens would be known as Cornelia, Cornelia Secunda (or Cornelia Minor), and Cornelia Tertia. These names were kept even through marriage into a different clan. Thus, Gaius Iulius Caesar's daughter was Iulia, and likewise the daughters of Scipio Africanus were known as Cornelia. Africanus' wife was Aemilia Paulla, daughter of an Aemilius Paullus.

Note -- the name of a wife or daughter is usually accompanied by that of the husband or father in the genitive. Thus Postumia Servi Sulpicii (= Postumia, wife of Servius Sulpicius); Caecilia Metelli (= Caecilia, daughter of Metellus).

Men's Names

The praenomen was the personal name. The Romans had less than thirty of them in total and only about ten were at all common. They were normally abbreviated:

• A.=Aulus
• C.=Gaius
• Cn.=Gnaeus
• D.=Decimus
• L.=Lucius
• M.=Marcus
• P.=Publius
• Q.=Quintus
• T.=Titus
• Ti.=Tiberius

The second element, the nomen, was in origin the name of a man's gens or clan. Everyone of freeborn origin supposedly originally went back to some common ancestor, though foreigners made citizens and freed slaves adopted regular Roman names. Native Roman nomens regularly end in -ius: (Julius, Tullius, Sempronius, Quinctilius), though by the late Republic one encounters other endings (esp. those of Etruscan origin), e.g. Perperna, Norbanus.

In the beginning the praenomen and nomen constituted a Roman's full name and were followed by the so-called filiation (a patronymic or indication of paternity). The filiation consisted of the Latin word for "son" (filius abbreviated by the latter f.) preceeded by the abbreviation of the father's praenomen, which was understood in the genitive. Hence, a Roman might have been known as M. Antonius M. f. (=Marci filius), that is, Marcus Antonius, the son of Marcus.

By the Middle Republic the abbreviation for tribe in which the man was enrolled was added after his filiation. When this became an official part of the name is not known. By the 242 the number of tribes was fixed at 35. A tribe was not an indication of common ancestry; the tribes were distributed geographically and a man belonged to the tribe in which his main residence was located. The tribe was an essential part of citizenship, since voting was often carried out by tribe. There was a three-letter abbreviation for each tribe: e.g., Cor.=Cornelian tribe, Fab.=Fabian.

As can be imagined, this system could be rather confusing, given the small number of praenomens and nomens. Hence, men acquired nicknames to distinguish themselves from other men of the same name. These nicknames eventually became inherited by a man's sons and thus became the mark of individual families. As such, they constituted the third element of a Roman's name, the cognomen. Their secondary origin as nicknames is shown both by their position following the filiation and by the fact that some families never acquired them during the Republic, such as that of L. Opimius or that of M. Antonius. As nicknames, the cognomina tended to refer to physical or mental characteristics: Catus, Cato and Catullus all derive from catus meaning clever; Crispus (curly), Longus (tall) and Luscus (bleary-eyed).

The origin of cognomens as nicknames is reflected in the fact that they do not appear in official documents until around 100 BC.

Among the nobility, a distinction could even be made in families, a second cognomen being added which his descendants would bear, thus establishing a sub-family within a family. Such a second cognomen is called an agnomen. An example of this is Cornelii Scipiones Nasicae, who distinguished from the Cornelii Scipiones Africani. The Africani represent a very particular kind of agnomen. The name who conquered a foreign people was given an honorific agnomen derived from the name or location of that people, and his ancestors would inherit the agnomen. Being a member of the Cornelii Scipiones, P. Cornelius Scipio acquired the agnomen Africanus for having defeated the Carthaginians in the Second Punic War.

Under the Republic, because most nomina were fairly common, the higher aristocracy tended to dispense with their nomen, using their distinctive cognomen in its place. Hence, for instance, C. Caesar without Iulius or L. Sulla without Cornelius.

A final element of men's nomenclature comes from adoption. Because of the high rates of mortality and infertility, families often died out, and to avoid this the Romans often practiced adoption. The adopted son would adopt his father's name, adding to it a variant of his birth nomen with the ending -anus added to it. Hence, when C. Octavius was posthumously adopted by his great-uncle C. Julius Caesar, he should have become C. Julius Caesar Octavianus (in practice he never used the Octavianus element). Adoptive nomenclature among the high nobility became very complicated in the first century.

Women's Names

There is inscriptional evidence to show that in the earliest period there were female versions of the praenomens and that women's names presumably consisted of a praenomen and nomen followed by filiation. By the time of the historically attested Republic, women no longer normally had praenomens. Instead, they were officially known only by the female form of their father's nomen. If further description was needed, the name was followed by the genitive of her father's name or, after marriage, of her husband. Hence, Cicero speaks of a woman as Annia P. Anni senatoris filia (Annia the daughter of P. Annius the senator). If only two daughters survived they could be distinguished as maior and minor ("elder" and "younger"). Mark Antony's daughters were known as Antonia maior (grandmother of the emperor Nero) and Antonia minor (mother of the emperor Claudius). More than two daughters were distinguished by ordinal numbers: Cornelia Quinta, the fifth daughter of a Cornelius. By the late Republic women also adopted the female form of their father's cognomen (e.g., Caecilia Metella Crassi, daughter of Q. Caecilius Metellus and wife of P. Licinius Crassus). This feminized cognomen was often made a diminutive (e.g., Augustus's wife Livia Drusilla was the daughter of a M. Livius Drusus).