ACADEMY OF SAINT GABRIEL REPORT 3275 http://www.s-gabriel.org/3275 ************************************ 29 Nov 2007 From: Ursula Whitcher Greetings from the Academy of Saint Gabriel! You asked whether or would be an appropriate name for a Roman woman living around the third century or later. We'll begin with some background on the structure and history of Roman names, and then discuss each element of the names you suggested. Throughout the republic period and the early imperial period, Roman men were named according to a three-element system: praenomen, nomen, and cognomen. This sort of name was called the tria nomina. The first element of the tria nomina, the praenomen or forename, was originally analogous to a given name. However, praenomina were chosen from a fixed set of names. This set, small to begin with, shrank over time, and by the first century BCE only 18 praenomina were in use. By the beginning of the third century, the praenomen had fallen out of use altogether. [1] The second element of the tria nomina, the nomen, was the name of an individual's gens or family and thus corresponded to the modern surname. These extended families could be quite large, so some nomina were very common. Nor were all bearers of a particular nomen necessarily related. A new citizen, for example, often took the nomen of the emperor who had granted his new status or that of an influential person who had helped him gain it, and a freed slave took the nomen of the former master. In particular, after the emperor Caracalla (whose official name was ) granted citizenship to the free residents of the Roman empire in 212, the nomen became popular. [1,2] It was usually the third element, the cognomen or nickname, that identified an individual. The cognomina served several other functions as well. A branch of a larger family might use a combination of their nomen with a particular cognomen as a hereditary surname. The inherited cognomen was called an agnomen. A cognomen could also signify adoption into a family. A man might have several cognomina, fulfilling all of these functions; in a formal name these would all be used, one after the other. [3] In less formal situations, the personal cognomen was the most important. By the middle of the third century, most men had names composed of a nomen and one or more cognomina. A woman's name in the republic period usually consisted of her father's nomen (feminized) and a cognomen. The cognomen often indicated birth order; for example, the older daughter of a Cornelius might have been called while her younger sister was called . If more than two daughters survived, they might have been called , , , and so on. [3, 7] By the late Republic period, women usually bore a feminized nomen followed by a feminized form or even a feminine diminutive of their father's cognomen. For example, the daughter of was recorded as , although would have been equally appropriate. Many variations arose during the imperial period, and by the latter centuries of the empire a woman might have been known by her father's nomen and cognomen (, daughter of ), by a combination of her father's and mother's nomina (, daughter of and ), or by her father's nomen and a personal cognomen. [4] is a feminized form of the nomen , which is recorded as the nomen of a soldier, , in 184 AD. [4] is therefore an appropriate nomen for a woman at the end of the second century or beginning of the third century AD. However, in our data the nomen , with the associated feminine nomen of was much more common than ; it is possible that is merely an unusual variant of . [4, 5] is a feminine cognomen based on order of birth. A woman with the cognomen might be the eldest of at least three surviving daughters. In addition, is found as a masculine cognomen by the middle of the first century, so by the third century, a woman named might be the daughter of a man named . [5] We found one example of as a possible cognomen in your period: there was a Roman empress named , the wife of Septimus Severus, who lived at the end of the second century AD. (As empress, used the title .) However, was originally Syrian, and appears to be a Latinized version of her original Syrian name; we cannot recommend as a name for a woman who is Roman by birth. [6] To summarize, would be a fine name for a Roman woman in your period, while would be a much less common spelling. We hope this letter has been useful. Please write to us again if any part of it has been unclear or if you have other questions. We were assisted in researching and writing this letter by Aryanhwy merch Catmael, Talan Gwynek, Elizabeth Turner de Carlisle, Walraven van Nijmegen, Maridonna Benvenuti, Margaret Makafee, and Brian Dorcha ua Connail. For the Academy, Aelfwynn Leoflaede dohtor and Ursula Georges 29 November 2007 --------------------------------------- References [1] Withycombe, E.G., _The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names_, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988). p. xviii. [2] Birley, Anthony, _The People of Roman Britain_ (London: B T Batsford, Ltd, 1979). pp. 15-19 [3] Mackay, Christopher S. _Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History_ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). [4] C. Daremberg and E. Saglio, eds., Dictionnaire des Antiquite/s Grecques et Romaines (Hachette 1877-1919, WWW: Universite/ de Toulouse le Mirail) s.v. . http://dagr.univ-tlse2.fr/sdx/dagr/feuilleter.xsp?tome=4&partie=1&numPage=92&nomEntree=NOMEN&vue=texte [5] Dean, Lindley Richard, _A Study of the Cognomina of Soldiers in Roman Legions_ (Princeton: Princeton University, 1916, Google Books facsimile). Ph.D. thesis. http://books.google.com/books?id=MF0KAAAAIAAJ [6] Zwalve, W.J., "IN RE IULIUS AGRIPPA'S ESTATE Q. Cervidius Scaevola, Iulia Domna and the estate of Iulius Agrippa" in L. de Blois (ed.), _Administration, Prosopography and Appointment Policies in the Roman Empire. First workshop of the international network Impact of Empire June 28 - July 1, 2000_ (J.C. Gieben: Amsterdam, 2001, University of Leiden facsimile). pp. 154-166 https://www.openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/1887/3591/1/362_003.pdf [7] Roman scripts have no distinction between upper and lower case, so the form appropriate for your period would have been or .