Ch 5 · Lesson 26Latin · Chapter 5 · Lesson 26 · Themed review
Nomina Romana
Three names and a family: how Gaius Iulius Caesar got his name, how women and freed slaves were named, and the family words English took wholesale.
Practise this lesson
17-word session
A quick mix of exercises - recognise, recall, type and build each word. Miss one and it comes back round until it sticks.
Worth knowing
Nomina Romana: three names and a family
A Roman man of the citizen class carried three names, the tria nomina. Once you can read them, every name in a Latin text tells you something.
The three parts
| Part | What it is | Caesar | Cicero |
|---|---|---|---|
| praenomen | personal name | Gaius | Marcus |
| nomen | the clan, the | Iulius | Tullius |
| cognomen | branch of the clan, nickname | Caesar | Cicero |
The is the important one: it says which , which clan, you belong to. The personal names were so few that they were written as abbreviations: C. for Gaius, M. for Marcus, L. for Lucius, P. for Publius, Q. for Quintus, T. for Titus. Gaius is C. because early Latin used C for the G sound.
Many cognomina began as jokes about a body or a habit. Plutarch says Cicero's comes from cicer, a chickpea.
Women, freedmen and adopted sons
- Women took the feminine of the father's
: a daughter of the Iulii was Iulia, of the Tullii Tullia. Two sisters were told apart as Maior and Minor, or Prima, Secunda, Tertia. - Freed slaves took their former master's praenomen and nomen and kept their own name at the end: Cicero's secretary Tiro, once freed, appears as Tullius Tiro.
- Adopted sons took the new father's whole name. Gaius Octavius, adopted in Caesar's will, became Gaius Iulius Caesar.
The course's own people follow the rules: Marcus, Gaius, Titus and Publius are personal names; Iulia and Cornelius are clan names.
The family words
| Latin | Meaning | English |
|---|---|---|
| father, mother | paternal, maternal |
| son, daughter | filial |
| brother | fraternal |
| wife | uxorious |
| parent | parent |
| old man, young man | senile, juvenile |
A Roman familia was the whole household, slaves included, under the authority of its oldest living male ancestor, the paterfamilias.
Try it
Marcus . - My father's name is Marcus.
. - The father and mother love their son and daughter.
. - My brother has a good wife.
in . - An old man and a young man are in the street.
Sources: Plutarch, Life of Cicero 1; Suetonius, Divus Augustus 7 (Octavius takes the name Gaius Caesar); Cicero, Ad Familiares 16.16 (Quintus Cicero on Tiro's freeing); Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights 13.9.1 ("Tullius Tiro, M. Ciceronis ... libertus").