Talk:Roman naming conventions

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To-do list for Roman naming conventions: edit · history · watch · refresh

Unfinished tasks as of 1 June 2006

  • There should be references and inline citations as indicated in the criteria.
  • Some sections are too short.
  • Sources are in inappropriate format.

Finished tasks:

  • this page would benefit greatly if the examples were split off into either seperate lists or sent to Wiktionary.
    • Roman Tribe names now at List of Roman Tribes.
    • Female names now at List of Roman Female Names.
    • Agnomen are integrated and link added.
      • Lists are removed.Rrpbgeek 20:44, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
  • The exact method of name creation evolved along with the nature of the Empire. As birth rates declined and Emperors began to have to adopt heirs, the popularity of it increased and it began to change the style of naming. As the culture changed and became larger, the need for further specificity of family and subfamily groups became more acute.
  • explanation as to the name creation changed over time is only hinted at. I would strongly suggest that a "History" section be included to provide background on how names evolved, perhaps with reference to other possibly pertinent articles like Roman Republic, Roman Empire or relevant sub-sections/links.
    • Added, and links provided at page bottom. Rrpbgeek 20:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
  • any information on how this may have evolved since Roman times would be relevant: did the practice carry on into Byzantine or post-Byzantine times?
  • You may also get faux objections with regard to the lack of pictures, which is not in itself criteria for rejecting an article for FA status. However, I would recommend delving into WikiMedia Commons looking for relevant illustrative images depicting names at various stages in Roman history, perhaps from headstones, coins or images of Vesuvian graffiti. A similar article for reference: Fivefold Titulary
  • Too much lists
    • Fixed. Rrpbgeek 20:48, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Confusing and not very informative for those who don't already have some grasp of the topic.
    • Attempted to resolve, but will leave up to admin. readers. Rrpbgeek
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Contents

[edit] older entries

Here until there is a better home for this note:

Decumius is a Roman nomen found on a number of inscriptions, but not otherwise mentioned.

Stan 14:00 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Some questions to improve the details: Is it not mentioned because the name is fictional? Purposes of inscriptions? (Fictional writings? Dedication to gods?) --Menchi 14:27 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)
The name is real enough, but one would have to go to the physical L'Annee Epigraphique journal issues to find out more. From the looks of what's online at http://www.archeologhia.com, they are mainly dedications by various persons named Decumius, about whom we know nothing else. So Decumius is not worth an article, but the non-worthiness seems worth recording somewhere, perhaps simply in a list entry. Stan 15:31 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)
Great article. Just one thing -- when I saw the title, I was expecting it to be a wikipedia convention (even though there was nothing in the title to say so). Can anyone think of a less potentially ambiguous title? Deb 17:04 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
I'm going to tinker with the layout at some point - the article should be reduced to something like Roman personal name to go with other things at name and the lists of known names separated for tinkering (everybody seems to clone this list, but contents seems to have some transcription errors). Stan 17:18 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)
How about naming practices or naming customs rather than naming conventions? —Tamfang 21:36, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Another note: "Festinius" is only mentioned online at [1], seen on a tombstone of a two-year-old child. Stan 17:18 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)

"Albanius" as nomen very dubious, no evidence, cognomen more likely and does appear in inscriptions. Confusions with Albanus and Albinus. Stan 20:22 7 Jun 2003 (UTC)

"Caius" should probably be explained somewhere, since despite being a deprecated form, still gets 84,000 hits on Google, "Gaius" is only 128,000. I was expecting to break the list of praenomina out separately and arrange vertically, which makes some room for comments, should be sufficient for the Caius/Gaius confusion. Anybody for mass redirects to help our Google match rate? :-) Stan 17:17 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

>>despite being a deprecated form<< It is surely this perverse usage of the word "deprecated" that is to be deprecated... 81.133.42.151 12:09, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I always thought that the reason why "Gaius" & "Gnaeus" were spelled with a "C" was one of the things folks learned in Latin 101. Of course, how many people take Latin 101 any more?
If you think there's enough content on each of the praenomina to create an article on eahc of them, go for it. Just hope someone like Egil doesn't come along & consolidates them. On the other hand, I've noticed the main article is getting a little too big: perhaps it's time to spin off the various parts of the Roman names (e.g., parenomina, cognomina, etc.) into separate articles, & just link the various praenomina to the article praenomina. -- llywrch 18:17 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)
"Latin 101"? Heh-heh, good one. :-) As you can see I broke out the list already, will test it out a bit before moving on the others. Some of the praenomina don't seem articleworthy, regular list format is just enough space to mention whatever tidbits there might be. BTW, I've already made redirs from nomen etc to the naming convention page, since without the lists it would be a pretty reasonable size. Stan 19:18 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

What's the Roman name for ninth? Jigen III 14:01, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Novem is the word for nine as a noun, nona is the word for ninth as an adjective. 1111, 11 4 06

"When a Roman man was adopted into another family (a common event due to the small number of children most families had), his name would become the adopted father's full name, plus his birth family's name in a derivative form."

Perhaps I just didn't get this this right, but shouldn't it read "his name would become the adoptive father's full name"?

I have always known that Marcus was the only roman first name that survived into English. And I have always thought that it was obvious that this was on account of St. Mark. I have however wondered if the deciple Mark had a Roman first name, or if that is a latin aproximation of a similar but un related hebrew/greek name. The funny thing is that Romans with this first name are often known by that name now, such as Marcus Antonius, and Marcus Aurelius. This is the same in Spanish. There are children name Marcos Aurelio, and Marcos Antonio, even Marco Tulio. But there are no children named Gaeo Julio Cesar, while there are lots name Julio Cesar. I have also never seen an example of someone called Marcus who had a "cognomen" that I can recollect. Can anyone shed any light on these things?

Can't shed any light on it myself, but I can extend the observation to teh fact that Lucius survived as Luke - another Christian religious figure. —Cuiviénen, Saturday, 6 May 2006 @ 01:28 UTC
Luke (Λουκας) is a Greek name unrelated to Lucius, though of course nowadays one may be substituted for the other. —Tamfang 21:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] dithemes

I'd like to insert somewhere that all(?) other branches of Indo-European had a tradition of dithematic given names, i.e. consisting of two words whose meanings are usually known: Naga-rajan, Bogu-slav, Gunn-hild, Demo-sthenes. Where does this fit? And are there any dithematic Roman names? —Tamfang 00:44, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

  • You could add it as a subsection of History, or maybe as a new section on the history of contemporary naming conventions. I can not find or think of any dithematic names, but the cognomen and sometimes even the agnomen were descriptive. As many Romans used this as their distinguishing unique name or common name for friends, it could be inferred that the same idea continued in other cultures. It's up to you. Ity does sound like a valuable piece of information, however. Rrpbgeek 02:04, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] outer linkage

The SCA reference is linked at the bottom of the page; why include it three times in the main text? I'm going to remove those. If you put them back, remember, only one set of brackets for an external link. —Tamfang 21:31, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Informal names

I've always wondered if there's any information on what a Roman person would be called by close family members (parents and spouses) and close personal friends (especially during childhood when formality is far less common). It seems that with so few Praenomens being used, and with the other names also belonging to so many other people within the same family, it would be very difficult to make a casual reference to a specific individual. Did they perhaps have another name, an everyday name that was commonly spoken but considered far to casual and unofficial to ever be included in written documents? --Icarus 18:31, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cognomen and late Roman naming

We currently claim the following:

The pattern was even more slowly adopted by the non-patrician families, with the first examples of cognomina for the plebians dating to c. 125 BCE and not becoming popular for another century.

This is simply not true, if by "plebeian" we mean what it actually meant at the time - i.e. "all families that were not part of the hereditary patrician caste, and including many well known senatorial families." The list of consuls here, which shows patricians in blue and plebeians in red, starting in 300 BC, shows plebeian consuls with cognomen from the very beginning. At the very least, one can note the plebeian consuls of the early Second Punic War - Tiberius Sempronius Longus and Gaius Terentius Varro, both of whom obviously had cognomina (and Varro, at least, is normally called "Varro," rather than "Terentius" - the other I've seen alternately called "Sempronius" and "Longus." Later Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus most certainly was a plebeian (he was Tribune of the Plebs) and died in 133 BC. The cognomen "Crassus," of the likewise plebeian Licinii, shows up in205 BC...so this statements seems to be wrong. We should not say "plebeian" when we do not mean it in the proper sense - we should say "commoners" or "those outside the senatorial elite"

Secondly, as far as I can tell, these naming rules only work particularly well up to the early principate. From the 2nd century AD onwards, we seem to be entering a world of completely incomprehensible naming, if List of Roman Emperors is any guide. Certainly, by the time of the Tetrarchy, names have completely stopped making sense based on the customary naming rules. I'd say this starts at least with the early Julio-Claudians, who pretty quicly stopped having normal praenomina - they start having praenomina like "Drusus" and "Nero" which are, to my mind, cognomina. (Drusus the elder had "Nero" as his praenomen, and "Drusus", a cognomen associated with his mother's Livian gens, rather than his own Claudians, as his cognomen. How on earth did that happen? Names in 38 BC were still mostly fairly normal, as far as I can tell. Why didn't he get a sensible name like "Gaius Claudius Nero?" On the other hand, his father's father was apparently named "Drusus Claudius Nero", so now I'm utterly confused - the Drusus name was associated with, as I said before, the Livii. Livia herself was a Claudian by blood, but a Livian legally, as her father was of the Claudius Pulcher family, but was adopted by a Livius Drusus. But that would suggest that the "Drusus" name had no prior connection to the Claudius Neros at the time that Tiberius Claudius Nero's father somehow ended up with it as a praenomen...So I'm just completely confused now. john k 18:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Query

I can't recall ever running across anything on how an illegitimate child would be named? Romulus, for example, was called in some early references "Romulus Silvius," after his mother. But was that a proper Roman form?


--Al-Nofi 22:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding Cognomen and late Roman naming

Like modern aristos, prominent Romans sometimes used cognomia as first names, beginning in the 2nd Century BC. I recall a kinsmen of the great Aemillius Paulus bore "Paulus" as a praenomen. AP had given two sons to be adopted, and then lost the remaining two, thus having no male offspring. It was a way of preserving the name of a noble but extinct line. Sort of like "Tweed Roosevelt," Teddy's several times great-grandson, or Prescott Bush, the president's grandfather.

This seems to have become acceptable in the late Republic and early Empire. And when you get into the middle empire, all the rules seem to fall apart.

--Al-Nofi 22:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sexistic POV

This article is very sexistic. In some of the first paragraphs the word "people" are used instead of "male romans". Wasn't the Roman women people too? How the Romans regarded women should not be copied to the structure of this article. The article needs a total rewriting to meet the NPOV standard. It would be best dviding this article in two; one summary article dealing with male and female name on a NPOV basis and breaking some of the material out in order to form a new article about roman male naming conventions in harmony with the existing roman female naming conventions article. 217.208.68.17 (talk) 23:04, 4 March 2008 (UTC) (user on another language's Wikipedia)