Talk:Roman naming conventions

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

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"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"?

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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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

meaning of Augustus

On May 29, User:71.124.173.176 changed Augustus ("Majestic") to Augustus ("First Citizen"), apparently misunderstanding the sentence. I'm gonna change it back now. —Tamfang (talk) 04:35, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Augustus, It means to be revered; August. eg: ie: old English, He is an August man, Or a most August familiy.

The month of August is August (revered).

Majestic, the romans had no such word. It's 1500-1600's English.

First Citizen in roman is "Princeps" in Latin. What today is now Prince.

122.149.40.21 (talk) 08:01, 29 December 2012 (UTC) John

Yes, thank you, "Majestic" here is offered not as a Latin word but as a translation of Augustus. —Tamfang (talk) 07:07, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure "majestic" is the best translation. There's an implication of monarchical power in the English word which, I would have thought, is unlikely to have been conveyed so directly by the Latin word, a least at the time of Augustus himself. "Augustus" also has a quasi-religious inference as well as political, which "revered" also conveys. A quick search of google books suggests to me that "revered" is more supported amongst the WP:RS than "majestic". DeCausa (talk) 22:35, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

We have an article Augustus (honorific) that may or may not clarify this. Cynwolfe (talk) 04:51, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Quintus, Sextus etc

I read somewhere that it was the Roman custom that the fifth son would be called Quintus, the sixth Sextus, etc etc. Is that true, and if so, shouldn't it be mentioned here? --Michael C. Price ^talk 19:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

women and cognomina

By the late Republic, women also adopted the feminine form of their father's cognomen, e.g., Aquilia Severa was the daughter of Aquilius and married a Severus (in her case, both of her names are derived from nomina).

How does a woman who used her husband's nomen exemplify the use of a father's cognomen?! —Tamfang (talk) 06:22, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

tne gender of gens

Grblomerth recently changed "gens Octavia" to "gens Octavius". Now, Octavius is not himself a gens; nor is this the appropriate adjective that goes with gens. Perhaps there's another justification for this change? —Tamfang (talk) 03:23, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

No? Then I'll change it back. —Tamfang (talk) 19:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Translations please...

Hello!

For a while now, I've a few questions about how to translate a few items into Latin… and was hoping someone here might know or offer their expertise. I have asked my friends but none seem to know with confidence how to translate these words into Latin.

Firstly, I wish to translate first these names into Latin. Secondly, I wish to know how then would the supposential decedent family of these people be translated into Latin. For instance, the Julius Ceaser was a member of the Julii, yes? This is what I’d like to know.

The male name Jafan… how would that translate into Latin and what would his decedent’s family name be rendered? Jafanii?

The female name Kylantha, how might this name be rendered into Latin? What about people who support this person's rule?

The name of a river… Solleu. How would people from the Solleu river basin be known as? Sollensians? Sollensinii? But how does that translate into Latin?

Also, the name Naboo. How would people from Naboo be known as? Naboo originates with Nabu.

One last question... when would it be appropriate to say a name like this... Atia of the Julii?

Any help anyone may offer would be greatly appreciated! ♦Drachenfyre♦·Talk 10:15, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

The name Gaius Julius Caesar (the famous dictator) can be broken down as Gaius, a member of the Caesar branch of the Julii, yes.

As for your other questions, you're not looking for translations, you're asking how a name would be adapted to fit Roman customs, and that calls for some assumptions ... Are you supposing that a barbarian immigrates to Rome and founds a new gens (or branch)? It's much more likely that he's adopted into an existing gens and given a new Roman-style name, but anyway ...

Four of your questions seek an adjectival suffix to a Latinized foreign name. There are several, of which ens-is, īn-us and ān-us are among the most common. At first I supposed that Solleu is in France, in which case it might well have a Latin name already (complete with derived adjective), but it's on the planet Naboo, so, hm — may I assume that Jafan and Kylantha are also inventions of Lucas?

Guessing at how these names are pronounced, they might be Latinized as Diafan (third declension), Caelantha, Sollū (u-stem neuter), Nabū (ditto), with derivatives Diafanides (descendant), Caelanthani (partisans), Solluensis, Nabuensis. Or they might not. —Tamfang (talk) 04:26, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Tamfang! Wow! Yes, you are correct as to Lucas. But Lucas is himself not too origional.. drawing from Latin and Sanskirt origions for many of the names of his characters. Naboo is directly souced from the Babylonian god Nabu. So far I have not found where he was inspired by the Solleu river. But much of the EU material on the culture of Naboo seems to mix it between French, Italian, Swiss, Babylonian... and Sanskirt! lol. What a mix.

A few last questions... what does "third declension" mean exactly? And to be clear.. the children and heirs of Kylantha would be Caelanthani? Or Caelanthandes? If I was to speculate as to what Kylantha's children's last name might be if they claimed ancestry from Kylantha. I understand her partisans and supporters would be Caelanthani. Jafan was the king who united all of Naboo, and established a royal family that ruled there for 1k years before becoming extint, and the monarchy elective. Kylantha was the Queen of Naboo during the Empire, and there seems to be evidence she established a royal family that ruled Naboo thereafter.♦Drachenfyre♦·Talk 04:50, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

See Latin declension. By "Diafan (third declension)", I mean that its cases are Diafan, Diafanem, Diafanis, Diafani, Diafane (consonant-stem, like Caesar) rather than, for example, Diafanus, Diafanum, Diafani, Diafano, Diafano (o-stem).

Descendants of Kylantha might be called Caelanthides (i-stem), with a Greek suffix meaning 'descendant' (I don't know a Latin equivalent offhand, but that's okay as 'y' and 'th' occur only in Greek words!).

All of this is outside Roman naming conventions, though; if Kylantha married a Roman, her children would bear no trace of her name. —Tamfang (talk) 03:50, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

shortening

... cognomen Octavianus (shortened to Octavian) ...

The parenthesis was added recently. Does it merely mean that Octavian is the usual English form (in which case I'd remove it), or – I ask with excess caution – did that shortened form exist in Latin?? —Tamfang (talk) 17:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Titus VS Vespasianus

I understand why Titus Flavius Vespasianus (the father, R 69-79) known as Vespasianus, because it's his cognomen. but why his son, Titus Flavius Vespasianus (R 79-81) known on his praenomen; Titus, - and not on his cognomen; "Vespasianus"? (Sorry for my bad English) Israel Krul (talk) 22:24, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I had to fix some of your words, but I kept the sentence intact. I think his son is "known" -- as in "known in the 21st century" -- simply as "Titus" for brevity's sake. But by what name is he "known" in his time, I don't know. Having translated this article to Indonesian, I have to say that the Romans are weird! Bennylin (talk) 07:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Tiberius and Gaius (Caligula) were also known by their praenomina. What emperors were known by is kind of random, because their cognomina as emperor was always "Caesar" or "Augustus." john k (talk) 15:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Later developments?

What happened to names later on in the Mediterranean? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.86.185 (talk) 13:36, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

I want an answer to that too. How did the names in the italian peninsula changed from Claudius Maximus Vespasianus to Giorgio Gambini? 189.5.154.236 (talk) 12:06, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

The evolution of names in Italy from the familiar tria nomina was a complex process with a number of steps. The first one, mentioned in the article in its current form, was the rise of polyonomy in the 2nd century. Then, as the praenomina came to be fossilized, it fell out of use in the fourth & fifth centuries. Reaching the post-Imperial period, however, examples of naming become much fewer, so we have to guess at what happened. Some obvious trends include the introduction of German names, & the simultaneous discarding of the gentilica due to rise of prestige for Germanic ideals & a loss of prestige for Roman ones. (This is the primary reason why it is practically impossible to connect any modern lineage with those of the ancient world.) By the Late Middle Ages -- when records become more numerous -- most people were content with using one name, although often with some kind of modifier at the end, indicating place of origin or their livelihood. -- llywrch (talk) 19:53, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

The problem with this article...

...is that it assumes the tria nomina formula is THE Roman naming convention. In fact it is the naming convention from the late Republic to the early Imperial period only. There is a lot of confusion in the questions and answers above regarding the later period. Unfortunately, I don't have the time, but someone needs to incorporate into the article Benet Salway's piece "What's in a name? A survey of Roman onomastic practice from c.700b.c. to 700 a.d." ("Journal of Roman Studies" Vol.84, 1994, pp.124-145). It would dispel much of the above misconceptions and confusion. 109.152.78.43 (talk) 15:47, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Started work on that. Work in progress. DeCausa (talk) 20:57, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Era

For the record, this edit, though made without an edit summary, corrected an inconsistency of era style, which seems to have been established as BC/AD. Since era style generates an unfathomable amount of acrimony, I just wanted to note for the sake of clarity that this seems to have been an entirely legitimate edit for consistency. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:24, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Article organisation

@P Aculeius: Your edit summary here is both ironic and frustrating. I put considerably more than a week's work into this in 2012 to sort this article out and, to me, you trashed it in June of this year without discussion. (Unfortunately, the article dropped off my watchlist for some reason and I've only just noticed what you did.) The problem is that you are basing your version of the article on an outdated view. If you look at your sources, they are:

• Oxford Classical Dictionary (1970)
• Harper's Dictionary of Classical Literature and Antiquities (1897)
• James Chidester Egbert, Jr., Introduction to the Study of Latin Inscriptions (1896).
• George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. VIII (1897).
• Early Empire WP:PRIMARY sources

In 2012, I put considerable effort into reviewing the modern published literature on Roman onomastic conventions: the current scholarly view is not as it used to be. Salway most clearly sets it out. The tria nomina is no longer seen as the archetypal system which broke down after the early empire. Instead, it is now seen as primarily applying to the latter stages of the Republic and the early empire, and then primarily to the ruling class. So, as Salway put it, because it was in use by the social group which left the most complete historical record in the era which left the most complete historical record, it was traditionally assumed that that was the "whole story". This was compounded by the later empire gramarians making similar assumptions. (Although you do not cite them, they are heavily relied on by tradional secondary sources). What was traditionally seen as the definitive Roman naming system was, in fact, just one phase over a relatively short period.

I would ask you, therefore, to agree to restoring the structure of the article and essence of the lead as it was before your edits. I don't have any issue with what you have added on the tria nomina itself and so would have no objection to your added material remaining, albeit in the modern-view structure. DeCausa (talk) 09:47, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't see precisely what it is that you're saying the article presents wrongly. Nowhere does it say or imply that all Romans at all times used three names. Nor does any of the sources cited, for that matter. Nothing I wrote says or implies that the tria nomina were the "whole story" of Roman naming. But any analysis of Roman names must necessarily discuss different types of names and the way that the system itself evolved over time. Precisely because the full nomenclature of a Roman citizen is what people will encounter when they read Roman history, it only makes sense to analyze the Roman name in terms of the parts of which it consisted.

The portions of the article I revised this June used the tria nomina as a starting point in this process. From the outset, the article states that most of the people of Italy used a binomial nomenclature at the earliest historical period; that is, the period from which we have reliable writings that clearly identify individuals; but it also states that this probably followed an earlier development in which individuals had simple personal names, of which vestiges could be glimpsed in the origin myths of Rome and the writings of the earliest Roman grammarians. It states that, while the binomial system rapidly spread throughout Italy, the use of additional personal names (cognomina) was far from a universal practice, but rather one which varied in both nature and extent; it was first characteristic of the upper class, but over centuries the concept of social status led to more widespread use.

The article then goes on to discuss other parts of the name, such as specialized cognomina, filiations, and the voting tribe as a part of the personal name. The gradual breakdown of this increasingly complex system into a variety of confusing forms among the Imperial aristocracy, and the devolution of Roman nomenclature to simple names and signia in the final stages of the Empire are mentioned. Examples are given throughout, with the goal of making it possible for the reader to understand and interpret names they encounter in Roman literature and inscriptions.

If you want to argue that the article is wrong or somehow misinterprets the evidence, fine. But so far all you've done is to say that there's some kind of vague new understanding out there that proves that not only did the Romans themselves not comprehend their own nomenclature system, but nobody else did until today. Does this argument come with anything that applies specifically to what's written in the article, or is this just an argument based on the dates of the material in the bibliography? The very least that you could do is to identify specific statements that you allege are wrong, and present some logical basis for that argument. So far nothing that you've asserted seems to contradict anything that I've written, so I fail to see the urgent issue requiring you to revert all of the work I put into this article back in June. P Aculeius (talk) 21:47, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Before I respond could I check two points. Firstly, could you explain what was wrong with the organisational structure of the article from 2012 to when you changed it this summer please? Secondly, have you read the Salway piece? DeCausa (talk) 22:41, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

I would just like to note that while it's true that "most" people living under Roman rule didn't have the tria nomina, the purpose of the article has always been to elucidate the kinds of Roman names one encounters in historical sources—which are indeed most often those of the elite. Or rather, it's pretty easy to understand nomenclature for someone who only uses one name. It's the other forms of nomenclature that need explained. Most of the time the article is linked to in order to explain the components of a name like Marcus Baebius Tamphilus. Roman naming conventions for females used to make the nutty assertion, based on fashionable but anachronistic feminism, that these conventions revealed that Roman women weren't thought of as individuals. Why this wouldn't be just as true for all the Lucii Valerii Flacci is unclear. If it was an honor for men to bear the same name over and over, why is it demeaning for women? In fact, Roman women of the upper classes kept their own name and didn't change it to that of their husband, as most women still do in the U.S.: are we to take that as meaning Roman women were equal to men? So this is a caution against injecting too much sociology into an article that most fundamentally needs to explain to the general reader who knows little or nothing about Roman nomenclature that in Gaius Julius Caesar the Julius is the nomen of the gens, functioning more like our last names in the West. People who already know how to read the tria nomina don't come to this article to get their information. It's for people who don't know how Roman names differ from modern Western names. I really think this can be worked out without warring and massive reverts. Cynwolfe (talk) 16:04, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. This article isn't entitled Tria nomina (although a separate article on it could well be justified). My point isn't about injecting sociology into it, it is simply this: the "claassical" Roman naming convention was used over a relatively limited period of time, from the mid/late republic to the early Empire. It was a phase no different to the preceding and succeeding phases, except for one thing: it's been written about by late Empire grammarians and (until recently) modern sources as though it was the Roman archetype. The article as restructured P Aculeius gives the misleading impression that the tria nomina is the central Roman naming convention. That was certainly the mainstream view, but no longer is. The article needs to capture that. Until P Aculeius' edits it did that by dividing on a chronological basis: early Republic; Mid/late republic to early empire; Late empire. That's now lost. DeCausa (talk) 16:18, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

So, is the argument here that you believe the article should be discussed as a sequence of chronological developments, while I've written it as a structural analysis of Roman names? If so, perhaps each consideration could form the basis of a separate article, since either way this one is quite detailed. I've never cared for the title, "Roman naming conventions;" it's completely counter-intuitive, and the use of "conventions" to mean "customs" simply grates on me; what if we divided our work into two articles: one, a general treatment of each kind of name, in which chronological development takes a back seat to the formal structure of names (the tria nomina examined individually, filiations, tribal names, alternative names); and two, an article focusing on the development of the naming system without emphasizing the individual elements. I would suggest calling the former "Roman names" and the latter "Development of the Roman name" or "Naming Conventions in the Roman Empire" (depending on the focus) and interlinking the two at appropriate junctures.

Or, perhaps I'm still not getting what you're saying. I understand that not all Romans had three names; I thought I'd said from the outset that the custom for Roman citizens was to have two names, a praenomen and a nomen, to which a filiation was attached, and that some (but not all) Romans also had a third type of name, the cognomen. Roman women (who were not actually citizens, in the Roman sense of the word) always had a nomen, sometimes a praenomen, sometimes a cognomen, sometimes other informal names. All the other people of Italy, excluding Greek colonists and marauding bands of Gauls, followed more or less the same customs, in varying stages of development, from the period of the earliest written records to the middle of imperial times; all individuals known from the beginning of the Republic onwards followed this basic system, and most of the later imperial developments were elaborations superimposed on it. The names represented under the heading of "tria nomina" never completely disappeared; despite the proliferation of cognomina and combined maternal and paternal names in the later empire, some individuals still bore identifiable praenomina; many bore identifiable nomina; most of the remaining names are cognomina (or based on cognomina) that first appeared hundreds of years earlier. The only completely independent type of name used by Romans seems to have been the signium; and only a fraction of individuals who appear in history toward the very end of the empire are known by signia. Do these very recent sources describe some other system of naming that was widely used at Rome for more than a brief period of time?

If this is mainly a debate about two approaches to discussing Roman names, then I suggest splitting it into two articles along those lines; otherwise it's going to be overlong, overcomplex, and repetitive. If it's not an argument about the approach, but about the types of names and their usage, then I don't feel that I understand exactly what other system is to be discussed. P Aculeius (talk) 14:32, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

It is a chronological issue, but not exactly as you have described it. Salway's article, which is a pretty thorough review of the literature and also of the primary sources of Roman names from the early Republic to 6th century CE is well worth reading. You refer to a chronolical approach v "a structural analysis of Roman names" but I would say what you are suggesting is in fact the structural analysis of Roman names from the mid Republic to early Empire only. What Salway points out is that after the early Empire there are of course elements of that system that persist and prior to that period there are elements which are its antecedants. But it is incorrect to give the impression that it is the Roman naming system. I think if you read Salway's article you would see that your comment that "most of the later imperial developments were elaborations superimposed on it" is not supported by the evidence. It seems to me there are three interlocking phases. The first is the early to mid republic when there is significant evidence that the Romans had a typical Indo-european mono-nomialism which moved into bi-nomialism. The next phase is essentially the era you are focussed on and the tria nomina is the main feature. Then after the first century CE, this soon disappears. This is already in the article and you left in what I had put in in 2012 - you have it headed "Later developments". In fact, there is more that could be said - I didn't get round to adding it. the point here is that the conventions here are not simply a bastardization of the tria nomina etc. It's more complex and diverse but the conventions have their own rules nevertheless and are independent of the conventions that existed up to the 1st century. What I'm trying to get across, and not very successfully, is that Salway's point, which has been extensively cited subsequently, is that later historians have mistakenly viewed the prevalent conventions of 200 b.c. - 100 a.d as the "proper" Roman naming system. What came before was preparatory to that and what came after was that system in decline. Whereas it should be seen as only one of a sequence of systems, albeit related.

So, in summary, I have no problem with what you have written on the whole. (Except that the development of binomialism came later and is a chronological devopment contrary to what you say in the article - the evidence is that later Roman writers anachronistically applied it to earlier Romans.) I would however put it in it's own self-contained section (and would be the largest section) in the article, making it clear that this is a description of the prevalent convention from the mid-republic to the early empire. The "Origin and development" and "Later developments" (which ideally I would rename Early republic and Later Empire respectively) should stand as separate sections on the same level. I would also like to change the lead to reflect all of this, something closer to the lead here. DeCausa (talk) 16:17, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Fortunately, I was able to find a copy of Salway's article and read it this evening. It's a very good survey of Roman naming customs with much more focus on the forms of names used in imperial times than I've seen in other literature, although I think it lacks some of the focus on the naming practices of the early Republic that other writers have given, and either misses some subtle points that aren't relevant to this discussion, or are are of minor importance. Although I enjoyed reading the article, and wouldn't think twice about citing Salway as an authority for many of his points, including a thorough discussion of imperial naming customs, I do think that his primary thesis is itself a bit muddy. As I understand it (correct me if you understand it differently), the premise is that the tria nomina represented a relatively brief period of Roman nomenclature, during the transition from the binomial form of praenomen and nomen (and Salway clearly calls it binomial) to that of nomen and cognomen. That sounds simple enough, but there are two reasons why I don't think the article as a whole establishes that principle.

First, there's a general confusion between the phrase tria nomina and the concept of Roman nomenclature. Does Salway use the term to mean the three elements of praenomen, nomen, and cognomen, which he flatly states existed for nearly all the history of the Roman Republic and most of the Empire; or does he mean the way in which some authors have carelessly conflated the division of the Roman name into these three elements with the concept of the Roman name itself? I don't believe that any of the scholarly literature asserts that most Romans bore all of the tria nomina throughout the Republic, or that the tria nomina was closely adhered to throughout imperial times. So if this is how Salway is using the term, then he's tilting at windmills, arguing that a misconception that most people don't have is wrong; but if he's using the term in the literal sense, then he's contradicting himself, since he admits that all three elements of the Roman name existed for the vast majority of Roman history, and that practically all Roman names fit into one or another of the three categories of name.

Secondly, it's not clear precisely when the transition Salway tries to describe is supposed to have occurred, because he never seems to be able to place an upper or a lower boundary on it. If you cherry-pick some of the important stages he describes in the development of Roman names and their usage, then yes, you can define the transition as a short period. But to do so seems to ignore the extremely long and gradual transition that the entire article describes in intricate detail. To begin with, Salway states that the binomial system of praenomen and nomen was in place by the mid to late seventh century BC, well before the establishment of the Republic. He then dates the early use of family cognomina to the second half of the fifth century BC (he doesn't clearly distinguish these from personal cognomina, which necessarily predated family cognomina) (Roman literature ascribes both personal and hereditary cognomina to the beginning of the Republic, some fifty years earlier).

So for at least some of the Roman aristocracy, the transition began in the earliest period of the Republic. I believe that he then dates a more widespread usage of cognomina to the second or third centuries BC; but Cicero, as he says, still used the form of praenomen and nomen, which was also preferred by Livy, even though by their time cognomina were in widespread use; two centuries later, Tacitus uses nomen and cognomen in preference to praenomen and nomen. Salway says that praenomina "fossilized" by the end of the first century, and had become useless as diacriticals distinguishing members of a single family; yet he also says that they continued to be used routinely into the third century; although they then became rarer, he mentions a number of fourth century individuals with praenomina; and even a few in the fifth. Furthermore, as he says, the epigraphic material from this late period is so scarce that even the most important Romans are usually only known by one or two names, although they probably had many more.

In other words, Salway's premise about the briefness of the transitionary period from one binomial system to another depends on the end points that you use; and he doesn't really pick any, which is understandable considering that the transition is pretty seamless; cognomina were used centuries before they became of primary importance for distinguishing between members of a family; even when praenomina ceased to be useful as diacriticals they continued to be used for hundreds of years. There's no clear cut-off in either direction, and no point at which names other than the praenomen, nomen, and cognomen were characteristic of Roman culture (non-Romanized inhabitants during the last century or century and a half of the empire notwithstanding).

What I take from this is that the tria nomina never represented a monolithic system of names to which all Romans at all times adhered; but the three names described by this title existed pretty much throughout Roman history, even if the period during which a majority of citizens both had and regularly used all three names was only a fraction of that time. And if the article makes clear that the Roman name was much more than a single, unvarying formula of three names, and doesn't use the term tria nomina to mean such a formula, then I don't see any disagreement with Salway. P Aculeius (talk) 06:03, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Sorry about the double-post here, but maybe this can resolve the issue. After reading Salway thoroughly, and taking lots of notes, I don't think we're very far apart. Maybe I can revise the article to harmonize it better with Salway, as you intended. Even though I find his thesis less than proven, much of what he says about the tria nomina is perfectly valid and supported by the evidence. And last night I thought of a new lead that might accomplish what both of us want. P Aculeius (talk) 13:35, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good. There were some things you said about Salway that I didn't recognise, but haven't had a chance to check. But if you're making changes anyway, I'll wait. One point though: rejecting aspects of Salway is fine but it should be based on at least equally credible WP:RS, and preferably RS's critique specifically of what Salway says, rather than our own opinions. DeCausa (talk) 16:10, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Personally I don't think it's necessary to accept or reject Salway's thesis in this article. His article provides sufficient grounds for stating what the tria nomina really were and what they were not, and why the concept is familiar. I've revised the lead from stem to stern, adding Salway as a useful source for many of the points; but it was quite a lengthy lead, so I've changed it into a section called "overview" and added a shorter, one-paragraph lead. Also I added a picture to break up that wall of text... since the overview tries to make the point that, while we think of this system as "Roman," it wasn't specifically Roman in origin, I used an Etruscan fresco as illustration. I'll go through the "tria nomina" section later and see what needs to be revised. There may also be some redundancy in the "origin and development" section, so I'll just try to go through the whole article section by section. P Aculeius (talk) 16:28, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Alright, I've gone through the entire article prior to "Later development" and incorporated Salway wherever his overview of the subject seems useful. I've tried to clarify all references to the tria nomina so as to avoid suggesting that this was somehow the only or definitive form of the Roman name. A few sections have bulked up a bit thanks to Salway. I deleted the section on freedmen, since the one or two sentences that made it up are now covered elsewhere in the article, and added some sourcing for the section on women's names.

I also deleted the table analyzing a Roman name, since that should have been covered pretty well by that point; also the table had a lot of obvious errors in it. I would have liked to keep the picture of the tomb of Scipio Barbatus, but the only place it seemed to fit was under cognomen ex virtute, and that would have been inaccurate. The caption seemed to be defining "Barbatus" as "conqueror of the Barbarians," but in fact it means that he had a beard. Lastly I tried to turn the section analyzing Augustus' various names into a section about names in the imperial household; I'm not sure how well I did in that regard. Have a look, if you would.

I think that most of the points under "Later development" are mentioned at least a couple of times earlier in the article, so that might want a little revision. As it's your work, I thought I'd leave that to you. I think it's a good idea to have such a section, but it could probably stand to be a little more detailed. Hope you're in agreement with most of the other revisions! P Aculeius (talk) 21:14, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

Integrating new material

An article from 1992 by Paul Gallivan (of the University of Tasmania) has just reached me, which furnishes some interesting new information: he took the time to collect over 11,000 Roman male names of the 1st three centuries AD -- primarily Senatorial & Equestrian -- & group them by date & organization of the name (i.e., names w/o cognomina, those in tria nomina structure, two gentilica, & polyonymous), thus showing how the naming convention changed over those 3 centuries. This study is not only exhaustive -- there are 4743 senatorial names, of the 8,000 estimated to have lived in those centuries, 4823 equestrian names, which are all known at the time -- but likely not to be superseded for many years. It provides some definite information on the general trends in naming conventions for that period -- which is rare for the ancient Greco-Roman world. I'd like to integrate the tables from this article.

However, doing this might require a reorganization of the article, which is why I've opened this section. What would be the best way to do this? Thoughts? -- llywrch (talk) 20:07, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Quite difficult to answer that question without having read the article. I think it's available through Cambridge online, for which I was approved through the Wikipedia Library back in March, but the instructions for accessing that source never arrived. This seems to be a familiar problem, as it's the second Wikipedia Library source that's done exactly the same thing, and others seem to have encountered this, but there's no information I can find on how to resolve the problem. Is there any other way I can access this source? None of the libraries near me seem very interested in keeping up-to-date on "ancient history", so it's highly unlikely I can access it through conventional means. P Aculeius (talk) 11:41, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Send me an email thru the link on the left side of my user page. -- llywrch (talk) 21:05, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

@Llywrch: Hey, I know it's a little bit late (just a little), but... did this ever get to anything? I have also acquired the paper and I think it would be a nice addition to the article. Tintero21 (talk) 00:39, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

'Gentile' term and non/jewish distinction

Might be worthy to note, referring to note vii, that back in the old world, ehnicity and religion regularly correlated. The Hebrew term for "gentile" is גוי GOY. GOY originally (biblicaly) meant people. Later on the plural form GOYIM spread tremendously as a clear distinction between the Hebrew Goy and the world's Goyim. I figured if Gentile Roman-originally meant Clan-Family-Race, People (גוי in Hebrew) would fit well alongside. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gezellig~hewiki (talk • contribs) 14:13, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Inappropriate imagery from an Etruscan tomb

The image of a barbiton player from the 5th century BC Etruscan tomb called the triclinium tomb, believed to be painted by a Greek painter, has nothing to do with Roman naming conventions. At most it tells how great the Greek artistic and cultural influence was on the Etruscan world. On the contrary, the image from the Francois tomb of the late 4th century B.C. according to scholars contains information about Etruscan people who really lived, whose names are also known. --Tursclan (talk) 18:56, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

You've brought this up here, in the edit summary, and on my talk page—are there any other forums you want to argue on? As I made clear when I reverted it the first time, it's a perfectly reasonable illustration of an Etruscan in a section that briefly discusses the origins of Italic onomastics. The fact that it might have been painted by a Greek—if that can be proven—doesn't make it inappropriate. However, the image you've replaced it with is inappropriate for several reasons. It's a very poor-quality image, and fits very badly in the article due to its aspect ratio and consequently reduced size; part of it has been tacked on to the end despite not fitting very well; and the only obvious reason for including it would be as an example of art including Etruscan names. But this isn't the place to discuss Etruscan names in detail, and it introduces concepts that don't go in this part of the article, well ahead of where those concepts occur in Roman names.

This has nothing to do with the historicity of the persons depicted—which remains speculative, in fact, as the events depicted must have occurred at least two centuries before the painting was made—but everything to do with the purpose of having an image here: a general depiction of an Etruscan, not an attempt to display the writing of names or use an overly-long caption to discuss Etruscan onomastic practices in advance of any discussion of the relevant concepts in the article itself—as well as the quality and appearance of the image in its location. I am not minimizing the importance of the François tomb in Etruscan or early Roman history—but the image doesn't fit well here, is much worse quality than the image it replaced, and its usefulness to linguists and historians is not helpful at this point in the article. If a better-quality image existed, it would fit well into a detailed discussion of Etruscan onomastic practices, but it doesn't fit well here. P Aculeius (talk) 04:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I completely disagree, it's a random image that has nothing to do with this article. The fact that it is of better quality has nothing to do with it as well, since there are dozens and dozens of images of better quality. I invite you to stop rolling back until consensus is found. --Tursclan (talk) 12:15, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

You need to stop adding an image which has no place here. You claim that the image it replaces is irrelevant—but even if true, it doesn't harm the article to have it here; an odd-sized, poor-quality image with blank portions from mismatched sides, that takes up more than half the width of the page, and is only used to provide an overly-long caption about Etruscan onomastic practices is actually visually distracting and confusing for readers. No matter how much you love this image, it cannot stay here. Put it in articles in which it might actually serve a useful purpose; there are several. But it clearly doesn't belong here. And if you're having this conversation here, on the talk page of the affected article, there's no need to repeat the same discussion on my talk page as well. P Aculeius (talk) 13:21, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

You need to stop acting like you're the owner of the article. There is no consensus, the discussion has just begun. I'm going to check the article as well, because at first glance there is also a problem with the sources. The sources are all primary or very old. The most used secondary source is from 1970, 52 years ago. --Tursclan (talk) 13:27, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Accusing editors you're having a dispute with of "ownership behaviour" and threatening to report them to admins—across multiple fields, in article talk pages, on their talk pages, and in edit summaries—is the opposite of collaborative editing—you still haven't addressed any of the issues with that image you insist on adding despite numerous problems—and any discussion of sources is irrelevant to that.

However, as far as that point goes, there is nothing wrong with citing what the Romans themselves said about their naming practices, or what can be gleaned from the names reported in Roman writers; indeed it would be impossible to say anything about this subject without doing so. The fact that "the most used secondary source" is from 1970 is also irrelevant, unless it can be shown to have been superseded by some more modern source; in fact the most important discussions of Roman onomastic practices include several that are more than a century old. There are some more recent sources cited in appropriate places; for instance Mika Kajava's monograph on women's names is from the 1990's. Olli Salomies has a great deal to say about Roman onomastics, but as some of his most important work is in Finnish, it's not very accessible to editors on English Wikipedia. Some of his other writings are in English, and available to review, but they don't render all previous research obsolete; it's still important to cite authorities such as Schulze (in German) and Chase (English), to the extent that their work is available to review.

Roman naming practices from the earliest period to Republican times are less likely to be affected by recent scholarship than those of the Imperial period, which indeed confused many classical scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries, and on which a good deal has been written in more recent times; but recent sources on these topics do appear in the article and their conclusions are discussed at length. P Aculeius (talk) 13:45, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

@Tursclan: It seems you didn't like his explanations and chose to take it personally. I'm not an admin but you've been fairly hostile towards P Aculeius from the start. Both images theoretically work for the purpose of fitting that spot, but Aculeius' is of normal proportions and that's a deciding factor in my opinion. You are, however, right that it doesn't need to be either of those two images. You are always free to bring forward better alternatives if you don't like it rather than doubling down on the wide one and being rude to another user. 05:15, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

@SpartaN: Please, could you sign your message? Thanks. I apologize if I was rude, but the user kept as rolling back my contribution, which was in absolute good faith, before the discussion ended and a consensus was found. I don't agree that both images theoretically work for the purpose of fitting that spot, they are too completely different image. I do not in any way want to impose the image I posted. But that image I posted is objectively in theme with the topic of this article, and in particular with the sentence where it is written that "the origin of this binomial system is lost in prehistory, but seems to have been established in Latium and Etruria at least since 650 BC", since the image I posted has rather relevant examples of Etruscan naming conventions. While the image of the barbiton player from the triclinium tomb, painted like so many others from the same period probably by some Greek painter, has no connection with this article, nor does it probably depict an Etruscan in a realistic sense. This too is an objective fact. What does a barbiton player have to do with Roman naming conventions? Nothing. On the other hand, I do agree with you that it does not have to be one of these two images, so a third one can be chosen. What I am saying is that this third one must have some thematic connection with the article. I am available to choose a third image together. --Tursclan (talk) 11:53, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

surnames

The most important of these names was the nomen gentilicium, or simply nomen, a hereditary surname that identified a person as a member of a distinct gens. This was preceded by the praenomen, or "forename", a personal name that served to distinguish between the different members of a family. For example, a Roman named Publius Lemonius might have sons named Publius, Lucius, and Gaius Lemonius. Here, Lemonius is the nomen, identifying each person in the family as a member of the gens Lemonia; Publius, Lucius, and Gaius are praenomina used to distinguish between them.

The whole point of this passage is the shared structure of these four men's names, which is not presupposed. Omitting something is a strange way to illustrate it, so I added the nomen to each name:

… sons named Publius Lemonius, Lucius Lemonius, and Gaius Lemonius.

My edit summary was:

surnames cannot be implied here, because the sharing of surnames is the point of the sentence

P Aculeius (talk · contribs) reverted, saying,

This argument does not make sense; this is a typical example of parallel construction in English, and it is unlikely that anyone would be confused by it; the proposed ambiguity is premised on an implausible reading.

This is a typical example of parallel construction in listing members of a family in our culture, but we are not discussing persons of our culture, nor are we discussing the family members themselves: we are discussing names in another culture, and it's inappropriate to assume that such parallelisms are universal. Would you elide the family name in an analogous passage about Chinese names, and rely on an English reader to reconstruct the examples correctly? —Tamfang (talk) 13:33, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Parallel construction is a standard feature of the English language, not of whichever culture you mean by "ours" (I'm not sure whether you mean modern society in general, or the West, or the English-speaking world, or something else). It applies equally well when discussing Romans, and as the relation of praenomen to nomen was essentially the same relationship that nearly all English speakers will be familiar with, it is unnecessary to assume an ambiguity that would never occur to most readers. Did you actually understand a Roman named Publius Lemonius might have sons named Publius, Lucius, and Gaius Lemonius to mean that only Gaius was also named Lemonius, while his brothers Publius and Lucius were not (and noting that the preceding sentence posited a hereditary surname)—or are you merely supposing that someone else might encounter the same sentence and interpret it differently? That would not be a natural reading in English.

The example of Chinese names may not help much, as typical Roman names—and culture—are familiar, or vaguely familiar, to most English speakers (almost everyone knows of persons named "Marcus" or "Lucius", if not "Gaius" "Quintus", "Sextus", "Titus", or "Tiberius"), while Chinese culture and names are generally not that familiar, and are not at all readable or understandable to people who do not speak Chinese, for various reasons: in part due to writing, in part to reversed order of names and surnames, along with hyphenation, the apparently immense variety of names and lack of etymological connection to familiar words and names in English, and of course multiple and inconsistent methods of romanizing different dialects of Chinese.

The reversal of name order in Chinese would probably create ambiguity that does not exist with Roman names; if you posit that "Li" is a hereditary surname, and that "Li Jing might have sons named Bai, Na, and Li Hui", the order of names might confuse English speakers unfamiliar with Chinese culture, who might not be certain that all three sons would prefix "Li" to their names. Here we also encounter another cultural distinction that makes a difference between the examples, in that none of the sons mentioned is named after his father, something that evidently is not done in Chinese; but it was customary for Romans to be named after their fathers, and here this underlines the point that the surname applies to all three sons. Here Roman names work much the same as English ones, and there is no ambiguity; we do not need to deal with unfamiliar concepts until we get to the filiation or cognomen.

The example provided is no more likely to confuse anyone than "William Jones might have sons named Brian, Terry, and William Jones", particularly when you say in the same paragraph that "Jones is a hereditary surname belonging to each member of the family" and that "Brian, Terry, and William" are used to distinguish between them. Rewriting this on the assumption that English speakers cannot be expected to understand this seems at best pedantic, at worst patronizing. I think we should assume at least a basic understanding of English on the part of readers. P Aculeius (talk) 14:34, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Would you write "Chester, Colorado, and Palm Springs"?

It's not "assumption that English speakers cannot be expected to understand this". It's that the purpose of the sentence is to illustrate the pattern and omitting something is a strange way to illustrate it – do you disagree with that?

If we rely on the English-speaking reader's assumption that names in the gens Lemonia are analogous to those in the Jones family, why include this paragraph at all? Is the paragraph as a whole any less pedantic than my addition of two words? —Tamfang (talk) 18:09, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Illustrations

I'm deleting all the illustrations that aren't Roman—they don't illustrate nomenclature and they aren't even Roman. There are ample illustrations actually made in the Roman era available on Commons, including literally hundreds of inscriptions that demonstrate nomenclature. It's been several years since I've looked at this article, but it seems to me that ten years ago, it was perhaps not entirely adequate but far more useful for people just coming to understand Roman naming practices. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:13, 27 November 2023 (UTC)