Etymology of the name of Julius Caesar

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The name Caesar probably originated from a dialect of Latium which did not share the rhotacism of the Roman dialect.^[1] Using the Latin alphabet as it existed in the day of Julius Caesar (100 BC – 44 BC) (i.e., without lower case letters, "J", or "U"), Caesar's name is properly rendered GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR (the form CAIVS is also attested and is interchangeable with the more common GAIVS). It is often seen abbreviated to C. IVLIVS CAESAR. (The letterform Æ is a ligature, which is often encountered in Latin inscriptions where it was used to save space, and is nothing more than the letters "ae".) In Classical Latin, it was pronounced [ˈgajjʊs ˈjuːlɪʊs ˈkaesar]. In Greek, during Caesar's time, his name was written Καίσαρ which was pronounced more or less the same. The pronunciation of the first syllable is similar to that of the German word (Kaiser), itself an early loan word.

Roman nomenclature is somewhat different from the modern English form. Gaius, Iulius, and Caesar are Caesar's praenomen, nomen, cognomen, respectively. In modern usage, his full name might be something like "Gaius Iulius-Caesar", where Caesar denoted him as a member of the 'Caesarian' branch of the 'Iulian' family. His grand-nephew, Gaius Octavius, duly took the name "Gaius Julius Caesar" upon his posthumous adoption in 44 BC, and the name became fused with the imperial dignity; in this sense it is preserved in the German and Russian words Kaiser and Tsar (sometimes spelled Czar), both of which refer to an emperor. Compare the Slavic and Turkish word for "king", kral, from the name of Charles the Great.

[edit] Meaning of "Caesar"

The meaning of the name is unknown. The four commonest derivations of the cognomen "Caesar" are given by the writer of the Historia Augusta (Aelius 2.3):

from caesaries, 'hair', because the founder of this branch of the family was born with a full head of hair. (Julius Caesar himself was balding in later life.) This is the etymology favored by Festus.
from caesius, an eye color variously translated today as 'grey', 'blue-grey', and even 'blue'. (Julius Caesar himself had black eyes, Suet. Jul. 45.)
from caesum, 'cut out', because the first Caesar was cut from his mother's womb (see Caesarean section). This is the etymology favored by Pliny the Elder (VII.ix.47 — Latin, English).
from caesai, a "Moorish" (maybe Punic) word for "elephant" because the first Caesar had killed such a beast in battle.