It’s here! We delve into the wonderful world of Roman names. How do we understand who’s who? How did the Romans understand who was who? We’re here to consider the complexities of Roman naming conventions.

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Special Episode – Roman Naming Conventions

We look into some of the key elements of the Roman naming conventions of the Republic and the Early Imperial period. This includes the praenomen (the first name), the nomen (a reference to the clan or gens that the person came from), the cognomen (this name could have a variety of meanings!), and the agnomen (nickname).

This is by no means the extent of types of names that Romans deployed over the course of their history, but it’s a good start on some of the tricky bits including why Roman loved repeating themselves.

We look at some very interesting examples included:

• Romulus





• Numa Pompilius





• Livia’s dad





• Augustus





• And a certain Spartacus may also get a mention

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Is that Augustus with a bunch of fancy titles? Oh yeah. This comes from a statue base in Rome.

[I]mp(eratori) Caesari / divi f(ilio) Augusto / pont(i)f(ici) maxim(o) / trib(unicia) potest(ate) XXXVII / co(n)s(uli) XIII p(atri) p(atriae) sacrum

This is sacred to Imperator Caesar Augustus, son of Divine, pontifex maximus, holding tribunician power for the 37th time, consul for the 13th time, father of fatherland.

More details on this inscription here.

Roman names and the social hierarchy

Naming conventions differed depending on who you were, the family you were born into, and what happened to you during the course of your life. Elite families had specific naming conventions, while different rules applied to enslaved people and those who were manumitted.

Got famous for all the wrong reasons? You probably had one or more unflattering nicknames.

Got famous for all the right reasons (according to Romans)? You likely had a name to recognise your superlative achievements.

Interested in our favourite Roman name so far? It’s none other than Spurius Furius! There’s been a few gentlemen with this name, but for a real blast from the past, check out Episode 91 – The Furious Romans.

Sources

• Brill’s New Pauly entries on the Praenomen, Gens, Cognomen, Agnomen, and Personal Names: Rome





• Salway, B. 1994. ‘What’s in a Name? A Survey of Roman Onomastic Practice from c. 700 B.C. to A.D. 700’ The Journal of Roman Studies 84: 124-145.





• The longest attested Roman name is recorded on an inscription (ILS 1104). ILS stands for Inscriptiones Latin Selectae also known as CIL 14.03609





• Wilson, S. 1998. The Means of Naming : a Social and Cultural History of Personal Naming in Western Europe (UCL, London)

Sound Credits

Our music was composed by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Automated Transcript

Edited for Latin terminology and to support our wonderful Australian accents!

Dr Rad 0:12
Welcome to the Partial Historians.

Dr G 0:16
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.

Dr Rad 0:20
Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr. Rad.

Dr G 0:30
And I’m Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.

Dr Rad 0:41
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr G 0:54
Hello, and welcome to this very special episode of the Partial Historians. I am Dr. G.

Dr Rad 1:03
And I am Dr. Rad. But what does that mean Dr. G?

Dr G 1:08
What is in a name? Would a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?

Dr Rad 1:14
One of us had to go there.

Dr G 1:17
It didn’t take long for this to fall down into a big heap did it? Roman names. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today.

Dr Rad 1:23
We are this is a special Patreon listener request. And you know what? It is about bloody time that we talk about names because God knows we trip over them all the time.

Dr G 1:37
Look, there’s nothing like a Latin name to really wake up the tongue when you’re trying to get all of your announced creation happening on a podcast about ancient Roman history.

Dr Rad 1:46
Yeah, I think my favorite one which always looks really daunting on the page is Tricipitinus or Tri-cip-itinus.

Dr G 1:54
Yeah, stay right away from that.

Dr Rad 1:57
So the Romans are known for having seemingly bizarre naming conventions where a lot of men are named the same thing, which makes things very confusing. And they also have seemingly very long and phonetically challenging names. So we thought it is a good idea to talk about this because it’s actually there’s actually so much more to it, I suppose there might first meet the eye and like an episode where we’re just rattling off console names and that kind of thing. Indeed,

Dr G 2:27
and I think I’d like to start I’d like to take us right back to the beginning the very early days of Rome just to sort of set the scene a little bit back in the olden dear listeners, welcome to The Land Before Time.

Dr Rad 2:45
A tale as old as time. Okay, the scene is set.

Dr G 2:52
Rome was open fields ruled by kings

Dr Rad 2:56
Houses were built out of mud.

Dr G 3:00
It was a beautiful time, a time of peace and prosperity.

Dr Rad 3:04
I actually just realized that most of the time the houses were built out of mud.

Dr G 3:08
Yeah, it makes sense. So the Roman kings have names right? So we’ve got guys like Numa Pompilius, and we’ve got Tullus Hostilius. And these are like precursor names. This is kind of like the first type of naming convention and Rome has to move away from it pretty quickly. Because it gets bigger, its population expands and they need to differentiate in more complex ways.

Dr Rad 3:33
Yeah,

Dr G 3:34
This initial naming system. Sorry

Dr Rad 3:36
No no no, sorry. I was gonna say, yeah, cause like the most fam