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personal names

names, personal 1. Greek. One personal name only was the rule, given at birth for men and women alike; women did not change their name upon marriage. There was a very wide variety of names, many of which were compounds of two common nouns with a flattering meaning; Megaclēs, for example, means ‘of great fame’. Others incorporated the name of a god, e.g. Apollodorus, ‘gift of Apollo’, or reflected personal characteristics (Plato, ‘broad-shouldered’), or circumstances (Didymus, ‘a twin’). Choice of name was entirely free, although it was quite customary for the eldest son to be named after his paternal grandfather. In Homer it is common for a hero to be called on occasions not by his own name but by a form of his father's name, his ‘patronymic’: thus Agamemnon is sometimes called Atreidēs, meaning ‘son of Atreus’. By classical times the patronymic had ceased to be used in its original sense; a name in patronymic form, e.g. Miltiadēs, was sometimes chosen as an ordinary personal name; occasionally a patronymic was added to indicate the subject's genos (clan); for example, someone called additionally ‘Philaidēs’ would belong to the genos of the Philaidae, the descendants of Philaios. If an additional name was necessary to aid identification, the father's name was added in the genitive case: thus ‘Cimon, (son) of Miltiades’. In some contexts indication of the person's deme is added, in adjectival form: thus ‘Cimon, (son) of Miltiades, Lakiadēs (from the deme of Lakiadai), or Periclēs, (son) of Xanthippus, Cholargeus (from the deme of Cholargos)’. These additional names were not used as a form of address. It is the practice of the historians Herodotus and Thucydides to identify a person by adding the father's name; in Aristophanes' comedies, on the other hand, characters introduce themselves by name and deme, and this is usually the practice in the fourth-century orators.

2. Roman. Among the Italian peoples, including the Etruscans, every man and woman had two basic names, the praenōmen, ‘forename’ or personal name, of which there were relatively few, and (more importantly) the nōmen, the ‘name’ of the gens or clan. In addition they usually had a cognōmen (see below). The praenomen was commonly written in abbreviated form as follows:

A. Aulus
Ap (p). Appius
C. Gaius (see ALPHABET 2)
Cn. Gnaeus (see ALPHABET 2)
D. Decimus
L. Lūcius
M. Marcus
M'. Mānius
N. Numerius
P. Publius
Q. Quintus
Ser. Servius
Sex. Sextus
Sp. Spurius
T. Tĭtus
Ti. Tiberius

For Roman women, at least in the upper classes, the praenomen was virtually abandoned, and they were usually known by the feminine form of their nomen or clan name, e.g. ‘Cornelia’, ‘Claudia’. A person's nomen was of course the same as that of the (legal) father; women did not change their name upon marriage. The nomen very often ends in -ius (Cornelius, Claudius); the (masculine) endings -a, -as, -anus, and -enus are characteristic of names from the north of Italy.

The cognomen was an extra personal name added after the nomen, and functioned originally rather like a nickname, indicative of the bearer's personal characteristic: Rūfus (‘red-head’), Brutus (‘idiot’), Nāso (‘big-nose’), Pictor (‘painter’), Scipio (‘stick’, originally given to a Cornelius who acted as a ‘stick’ to his blind father). Often, as in the case of Scipio, the cognomen was also handed down from father to son, and thus came to designate a sub-division within the clan, a family. Some clans, even distinguished ones such as that of the Antonii, admitted cognomina only rarely (Mark Antony, for example, had no other name; and compare C. Marius, whose lack of cognomen has sometimes been attributed to alleged humble origins). Further cognomina (sometimes called agnomina; sing. agnomen) could be added: thus the Cornelii Scipiones Nasicae were a subdivision of the Cornelii Scipiones.

An adopted son took his adoptive father's names but might add as cognomen the adjectival form of his own original nomen: thus the elder son of L. Aemilius Paullus, when adopted by P. Scipio, became P. Scipio Aemilianus; C. Octavius, when adopted by C. Julius Caesar, became C. Julius Caesar Octavianus (Octavian). Slaves were usually called by their own (single) name. Freedmen took their original owner's praenomen and nomen, adding their own (slave) name as a cognomen: thus Cicero's faithful slave Tiro became M. Tullius Tiro.

In informal surroundings a man might be addressed intimately by his praenomen; by friends he might be called by his nomen or his cognomen alone. In formal circumstances he was addressed by praenomen and nomen (and perhaps cognomen as well).

Under the empire, with the use of a plurality of names and reversal of the usual order, the system broke down, and there was eventually a reversion to the ancient use of a single name.