Did Ancient Romans have first names? Latin Praenomina

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What is the equivalent of a first name in Ancient Rome? Ancient Romans had the tria nomina, the three-name system, which contained a praenomen, a nomen or gens, and a cognomen. But how do these compare to English names? Is the praenome like a first name? and is the nomen like a surname? Or is that the cognomen? I answer these and many other questions in this video!
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Intro and outro music: Overture of Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) by Mozart
#Pantheon #Rome
00:00 Intro to Praenomina
00:24 Thanks to this video's sponsor Masterworks
02:17 Nōmen & Nōmine
03:27 Tria Nōmina
04:58 Praenōmina
07:17 Uses of the praenōmina
11:00 What about female names?
15:31 Outtakes

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

In my discussion of the inscription, I never gave the best translation of it, since I was concentrating on grammatical minutiae and was using odd word order, but it should be: "When Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, was consul for the third time, he made [this]." Thanks to those who pointed out that I had obfuscated this in my discussion.

[@BigMamaDaveX]

👍🏻 I came, I saw, I liked, and SUBBED! ✌🏻

[@nineteenfortyeight6762]

Oh dang, I was sure he rebuilt it

[@ldmtag]

If nōmen is the tribe name, than isn't actually nōmen the equivalent of our last name? And than cognōmen is like inheritable internet username?

[@alexandermashin5515]

Just wanted to comment: "fecit tertium, not consul tertium?"

[@alexandermashin5515]

And this woud be the second time.

[@WeyounSix]

Your lapel mic does such a good job of picking up your voice clearly, while allowing just enough chatter to come through for the ambiance

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad

[@R.a.p.h.a.e.l.a]

Another great video, but may I venture a nitpick: I learned back in the day, and every translation of the inscription that I've ever seen bears this out, that tertium goes with consul. The sense is that M. Agrippa built the Pantheon while consul for the third time (in 27 BC), not that he built it for the third time.

[@julianadeau5797]

Yeah, cause it doesn't really make sense that the Pantheon was destroyed a previous two times and then rebuilt a third time. It makes much more sense to write "consul for the third time" as a measure of time. Much how we would say, "In the third year of his presidency...", etc. in lieu of an actual year.

[@sabart5]

"consul tertium" means "during his third consulate", "while he was holding the position of consul for the third time"

[@daless3526]

Agreed. It's his third consulship.

[@rogeriopenna9014]

That's what I understood from what he was saying actually. That he made "it" (made to consul) for a third time.

[@albuso1974]

The sentence could be read in both ways and it would make sense grammatically, however the right interpretation is "consul for the third time" since Agrippa was actually consul for the third time in 27ac. Interestingly, the Phanteon was actually rebuilt during the reign of emperor Adrian.

[@ClaudioGrecoPhD]

Wait, you mean "tertium" refers to "fecit" not "consul"? I thought the inscription meant that Marcus, son of Lucius, made (this building) while he was consul for the third time.

[@xshwei]

Me as well, it confused me for a long time

[@BrunoRegno]

Chalk me up to the count of the similarly confused. Then I remember the thing burned down twice...

[@user-bf8ud9vt5b]

Every translation I have ever seen has tertium referring to Agrippa being consul for the third time. Agrippa built the first Pantheon, it was later rebuilt by Domitian, and Hadrian rebuilt it again. It does not make sense that Agrippa built it for the third time. By the time this version was built, his name being retained on the facade was a deliberate anachronism. How many times Agrippa was consul was far more important to him and his family, both for posterity, but also for dating when it was built.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Indeed! I addressed this in my pinned comment. I didn't make that aspect clear since I wasn't concentrating on the correct final translation, but was just filling in some more vocabulary to give context to the praenōmina. Thanks for pointing out that I had made it sound confusing!

[@atriyakoller136]

A small comment on first names being abbreviated to the first letter: it is extremely common in Russian documents too, we have our first name and patronym (for those who don't know, it's like a middle name, but it's always derived from the father's name and there are cases when the father is unknown/lost in some way - it can be made up (I think that's the most common choice), omitted or derived from the mother's name - the last one is a rare situation). So, we usually have both of them abbreviated and the last name spelled out - for example, Ksenia (first name) Igorevna (patronym) Smirnova (last name) will either be Smirnova K. I. (The variant which is common in most documents and after a signature) or K.I. Smirnova (usually in scientific publications and as an author of a student's book).

[@jonathanwebster7091]

What is interesting about Marcus Agrippa (the man on the inscription, and Augustus's right-hand man and son in law) is that 'Agrippa' was actually his cognomen: his nomen gentilicum; 'Vipsanius', he rarely, if ever used, presumably as a way to hide his plebian origins.

[@gillian932]

I highly recommend "Latin forms of address : from Plautus to Apuleius" by Eleanor Dickey, which is an homage to the Latin vocative. As well as showing how to address people over this time period, it includes useful tips on how to be rude like Cicero.

[@anaz5918]

One of my great-great grandmother was name Sixta which I found it interesting since she was born in Mexico and it wasn’t a common name or Spanish .

[@alonsoACR]

It is not common these days but it is definitely a Spanish name. I've known personally at least one Sixto.

[@eriathdien]

Ordinals as names were fairly common in Spanish. I've heard of plenty of people with names such as: Segundo, Sixto, Séptimo. Of course, most of them old people. What I don't know is whether parents used those names because they sounded nice to them or they were actually the order in wich the children were born (e.g. Séptimo, Seventh son of this family).

[@pierreabbat6157]

I once met a Salvadoran named Ovidio at my aunt's house (she is also Salvadoran); he had come over to do some yardwork. In Latin it's a nomen (Publius Ovidius Naso), but it's evolved into a praenomen.

[@AutoReport1]

The Italic tribes are unusual in that they do not use the dithematic naming system used by every other Indo-European culture from Spain to Bangladesh. Possibly because Italy had a lower level of migration than other regions and a dominant non-Indo-European culture with different values. The Italian gens is a family (even if some members are adopted), the broader Indo-European organisation were less stable military units drawn from a wider population by the reputation and wealth of the "chief", and personal fame (and therefore a unique name) mattered more than "family".

[@matthewheald8964]

1. Dithematic meaning first name, last name? Because the Romans did use something like that here, though they used the system differently than English speakers would. 2. Latin is one of the more conservative branches of Indo-European though.

[@AutoReport1]

@@matthewheald8964 no, names composed of two themes. Cleo-patra, Mithra-dates, Æthel-stan, Cuno-belinos etc.. In contrast italic names are monothematic, and often just indicated order (at least originally) Sextus, Tertius, Gnæus. Either there could be hundreds of thousands of dithematic names, only a dozen or so Italic monothematic names were used, and women's names are barely attested at all. What we think of as Roman womens names are the feminine forms of their clan, sept and family names - Claudia, Julia, Augusta etc.. If there were familiar forms used to refer to different sisters, usually no-one wrote them down.

[@matthewheald8964]

@@AutoReport1 I see. Fascinating. Could you give some example translations of the two separate parts of the name? I think I know what Æthelstan means (something like “standing noble”?), but no clue about the others.

[@AutoReport1]

@@matthewheald8964 the themes tend to follow semantic classes - totems, arms, fortune, inheritance, battle, fame/glory, peace, gods, tribes, power, defence, warrior, army, servant (in the sense of an official position) etc.. Heracles - Hera+fame; Mithradates - Mithra+gift; Æthel-stan - aristocratic+ stone; Cunobelinos - hound + Belinos; Æthelflæd aristocratic + beauty. I prefer aristocratic since the root sense is "of a family with inherited land", with related themes meaning "inherited land" and "fortune". There are examples in Celtiberian, Greek, Persian, Gallic, British, Germanic, Illyrian, Slavic, Baltic - everywhere except the Italic languages. The names of the gods differ, and some themes come in and out of use as the prosaic meanings change and new synonyms become popular, others seem to go back to the early Bronze Age. There is a bit of folk etymology and reanalysis over time. Brúnnhild - breastplate + slaughter - is reanalysed as Brun(a)hild - brown(bear)+slaughter after brúnn fell out of use when people stopped using that type of armour. There is a temptation to make these names have one combined meaning, but the elements tend to stand on their own. Sometimes a combination makes sense, sometimes it doesn't.

[@matthewheald8964]

@@AutoReport1 Wow. That's really cool. I never quite thought about that.

[@thorsday5505]

Wow, the Praenōmina seems like a Chinese tradition (zibei/字辈), where we use one character, usually the second one in a typical 3-character name, to indicate the birth order of a child in the family among his/her cousins. These characters are usually taken from a poem so the order can be remembered easily, and they usually vary from region to region. People don't seem to care it anymore as most big families dissolve to their own little families.

[@erraticonteuse]

What I know about this is that "Yo" was this for the family of cellist Yo-Yo Ma. And he says that, yes, his parents knew it was a toy in English when they named him that.

[@h4bbqpenger]

You should also learn about 姓，氏，名，字，号and their differences. Think you'd be interested

[@umkemesic]

Yes! My favorite subject, and inscription. I use the Pantheon as an example when talking about names, abbreviations, and grammar.

[@iambeloved496]

You're always out and about seeing the world around you learning and teaching these things to others. Keep up the good work and enjoy being you along with your adventuring personality. Live long and prosper.

[@muddled811]

Great vid first... always wanted to say that

[@BonanzaRoad]

Thanks for another fascinating and informative video!

[@zefciu]

The note about using ablative of “nomen” to get “by the name of” made me curious. In Polish you can use instrumental in the same fashion “znam piosenkarza imieniem Paul”, although it has some archaic ring to it. I wonder if it is the calque of Latin (like the possibility to put adjective after a noun which is unique for Polish among Slavic languages) or it developed organically in Slavic languages (the Church Slavonic has more uses for instrumental than modern Polish).

[@FarfettilLejl]

I was wondering the same about the Polish "imieniem"

[@2712animefreak]

In Croatian you can use genitive for this. "Znam pjesnika imena Paul".

[@ohajohaha]

​@@2712animefreak does it sound kinda "dated" as well?

[@Magplar]

13:13 Absolutely blew my mind. I don’t know how this flew right over my head for so long.

[@SaraMKay]

Thank you for the flash backs- I was so terrible at Latin, my teachers remember me even better than I remember them.

[@bytheway1031]

Very helpful. Thanks Luke!

[@aaronc4899]

This was very helpful - thank you!

[@caelumis3630]

Awesome video! I've must've read dozens of explanations of how the Tria Nomina from both books and online material, but your video really helped put those lessons into sharp focus. Do you think you might touch on the customs of Late Roman Naming? For a story I am writing, I have it set during the late 4th Century, Early 5th Century Empire and researching the history and onomastics of Late Rome... its an absolute nightmare. While I know this period was when Mononymic names were on the rise, you have a parallel name system where its the *last name* in the long list of names that's the personal name (having read Stephen Wilson's book "The Means of Naming")... but the information in that book keeps tripping me up. That's why I'm wondering if in the future you might do a video that tackles the subject as straight forward and easy to really grasp as this video has been!

[@samuelescalercio9817]

Thank you from Italy! Keep going 🇮🇹

[@cferrarini]

Always wanted to understand this facade! Thanks!

[@ItalianByLatin]

Great explanation! 👍 Maybe you'll make another video about the names of the slaves in Rome. Thank you for this video! Vale! 🙂

[@smoooty]

5:53 I like the pigeon that started spinnin around on the fountain

[@stscallop3254]

5:49 it was funny when you said “child” and you indicated to the left where a child was in the background

[@1lollmaolol1]

Haha funny that.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

My cameraman is outstanding.

[@Hrothlac1]

I was just wondering about this very topic. It's like you read my mind.

[@SerDunk]

Salve Luke! Gratias!

[@robj7188]

Thanks for this video. Is It really goodl👍🏻👍🏻👏👏👏👏

[@arnold4672]

Salve! Thanks for the video. Greetings from Colombia

[@julianadeau5797]

Hey, shouldn't the words on the Pantheon be translated as: "Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, Consul for the third time, built this."?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Indeed! I addressed this in my pinned comment. I didn't make that aspect clear since I wasn't concentrating on the correct final translation, but was just filling in some more vocabulary to give context to the praenōmina. Thanks for pointing out that I had made it sound confusing!

[@Raphe9000]

Laughing at the "it still happens in Italy to this day" part because my family is originally from Italy and even to this day like at least a fourth of them have one of two names.

[@Jorgejhms]

Still happens in Spanish also. Many people name their child after a relative

[@yungmalaria]

Im named after a relative who is name after their father and furthermore back to Italy

[@jayache777]

My family is also Italian. My son's name is John, my name is John, my dad's name is John, his dad's name is John, HIS dad's name was John, our cousin's name is John, his son's name is John as well. I'm trying to get my wife to let me name our next son Joseph after my father-in-law and brother, but she seems to think enough is enough already. You've got big John, little John, baby John, tiny John, lil' John... yet even I can't get my head around how these Romans distinguished one another.

[@annafdd]

I did a bit of genealogical research on my family and on my dad’s side they came from a small village outside Udine. For four hundred years there about one third of the population was called Feruglio and a third was called Bulfone. In my family tree there is some Feruglio marrying a Bulfone in each generation. And all of them are called Angelo or Giobatta. Maria if female. On the other side, there is an unbroken line of Caterinas from my great grandmother to my cousin’s daughter.

[@annafdd]

@@jayache777 I imagine it was Giovanni originally. In my neck of the wood for some reason Giovanni Battista is more frequent than Giovanni, but they end up being called Giobatta or, like my uncle, Titta. But the tradition is that you name your son after your father so there are usually names that alternate every generation.

[@signore1]

Great video! Interesting, I always thought it was saying Something like Marcus Agrippa (son of Lucius) consul for the third time made it. I think it serves as a way to date the construction of the original building.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Indeed! I addressed this in my pinned comment. I didn't make that aspect clear since I wasn't concentrating on the correct final translation, but was just filling in some more vocabulary to give context to the praenōmina. Thanks for pointing out that I had made it sound confusing!

[@Whateva67]

The Pantheon is one of my favourite places in Rome,new subscriber here. Hello from British Columbia 😎

[@niccolobattistoni6733]

I pass every day through piazza della rotonda to go to school, yet I haven’t spotted you yet in Rome. I’d love to just happen on you shooting a video near where I live.

[@marcusferreira3263]

Good job friend.

[@guillermorivas7819]

Mihi nomen est = mi nombre es Quis es tu? = quién eres tú? Ars longa, vita brevis = el arte es largo, la vida es breve.

[@calmeilles]

What about the agnomen, such as victory names, which sometimes became cognomen. And the accumulation of titles which get slotted in in a manner that look like names to us moderns: eg Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus as pater familias of the Claudians the Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus as emperor: praenome, nomen, cognomen, agnomen; then praenome, nomen, different cognomen?, title? agnomen. I know that the additional names were relatively rare but as they were attached to or appropriated by prominent people we see them a lot.

[@flyingisaac2186]

What we see now was mainly the work of Hadrian c 126 AD not Marcus Agrippa, Consul for the 3rd time. The portico appears to have been the only part retained when Hadrian remade this structure whose purpose is not wholly clear despite the name. Emperor Phocas, the last to have a triumphal pillar erected in the forum, transferred it to the Church in 608 AD, which was nice of him having stripped anything bronze and precious whether tiles or statues his men could lay their hands on. Urban VIII, Papa Barberini stripped the bronze from the portico which gave rise to a pun that a Barberini did what barbarians failed to do. Excellent video as always.

[@nexttla]

This is actually very similar to the way names worked here in the Polish nobility since the middle ages, except there was way more praenomens. Between the system's inception and somewhere around the renaissance, the structure would be [praenomen] [cognomen] _herbu_ [nomen] ("herbu" means "of the coat of arms of", genitive of herb), example wikipedia uses for this is _Jan Zamoyski herbu Jelita_. But during the renaissance, for obvious reasons, the nobles in Poland started to write it the Roman way of [praenomen] [nomen] [cognomen] (if someone had an agnomen it was placed before the cognomen and hyphenated), so in the new system the guy from the earlier example was _Jan Jelita Zamoyski_. Nowadays in Poland, ever since the abolishment of nobility, everyone now uses the western european system of Given names and surnames and majority of these surnames come from cognomens (thats why there are so many ending in -ski, it was an adjectival suffix common in cognomens)

[@DavidAmster]

Gratias, Luci, pro hac iucunda utilissimaque pellicula! Nomina Romana semper difficila mihi fuerunt.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Est mihi pergrātum, amīce!

[@benw9949]

@polýMATHY Have you done any videos on Etruscan or on its loanwords into Latin? Is there any evidence for Minoan loanwords into Ancient Greek? Just wondering.

[@seand6482]

I’m by no means an expert, but I’ve heard something similar to the cognomen exists in Thai. People have their “government name” (usually many syllables long), then a much shorter, sometimes bordering on the ridiculous nickname. Hopefully someone can provide better information than me.

[@dennyallman5399]

Paul McCartney in Latin is “Ille Paulus McCartnius” for those wondering…

[@magister343]

He has a demonstrative pronoun as a praenomen?

[@christophzeit6282]

No, it isn't. A classic and complete latin name consists of the tria nomina and necessarily has to include the father's name

[@jonathanwebster7091]

Wouldn't it be 'Jacobus Paulus Ursi Filius, Equites' given that 'Paul' is actually his middle name (his real first name is James), and that he's a Knight (hence the 'equites')? Also McCartney is Gaelic for 'son of the bear' so a literal Latin translation would be 'Ursi Filius'.

[@trashkidd]

that little girl at the fountain spinning just vibing, clueless to the fact she's being lectured to about ancient roman first names lol

[@seand6482]

How open-minded were Romans when it came to absorbing names from foreign peoples (cultures they admired, like the Greeks, or cultures that perhaps formed lower classes at the edges of society, like those taken as slaves)?

[@carinajauregui9383]

Por lo que sé, nada abiertos.

[@annafdd]

They weren’t.

[@jonathanwebster7091]

When the majority of Greek peoples attained citizenship in the empire, with the Edict of Caracalla (AKA the Constitutio Antonina), they would use their original name as a cognomen. This edict gave Roman citizenship to all non-slaves within the Empire (overnight). So, for example, someone originally called by the single name 'Aristarkhos' in Greek would become "Marcus Aurelius Aristarchus'; because they all adopted the praenomen and nomen of the Emperor Caracalla (his real name was Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus), this was usual when new citizens attained citizenship: they would usually take the praenomen and nomen of their sponsor. As for slaves, if they were manumitted (freed) by their master, they would take their master's praenomen and nomen, and use their original name as cognomen. So, for example, Cicero's former slave, Tiro, became "Marcus Tullius (Marci Libertus) Tiro"-"Marcus Tullius Tiro, freeman of Marcus"

[@Laotzu.Goldbug]

I'm still not quite sure I got a clear understanding of the simplest way to refer to distinct individuals then. Would it be by using their nomen and cognomen together? How would men of equivalent social ranks refer to themselves informally or in a familiar manner?

[@Romanophonie]

The timing of this video is creepily 😳 perfect… I just started Capitulum Duodecimum. Grātiās tibi agō, Luciī!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Sophōs!

[@jakubolszewski8284]

That happens, but not that often - me, who has had 3 friends called Jakub in primary school, and that was half of boys with me xD.

[@aiocafea]

yeah i was thinking how it isn't as common in the US and some other cultures but think of the Muhammads and maybe the Marias some cultures do heavily reuse names, and many have their own ways of dealing with this, like the large canon of diminutives for slavic names

[@jakubolszewski8284]

@@aiocafea And my favourite thing - cognomens hahae. Nicknames are by far main way to recognize people in my society (of course if someones name is too often, but not always, sometime when it is too rare hahae).

[@janmelantu7490]

When modern people Latinize their own names, do they usually make their given name a praenomen or a cognomen?

[@Great_Olaf5]

From what I've seen, typically neither. They just Latinize the names themselves and keep their own naming conventions.

[@omegacardboard5834]

From what I have seen they usually just keep it in the same order. So I think Luke for example writes his name as L.Amādeus Raniērius Edit: I changed it as I put a macron on the wrong vowel

[@Ellis307]

Hi Polymathy. I have a question about ‘Consul’. On wikipedia, I read that n’s were dropped to create a nasalised o before it. Thus, it was pronounced Cosul, hence its abbreviation to COS. Can you help explain this?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

I discuss that some here kzbin.info/www/bejne/pqS8fmCCq6ejotk

[@Ellis307]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Thank you ever so much!

[@bavariandave5627]

7:14 Lucius Incarceratus

[@Ivarius321]

Have you moved to Rome? How are you able to do all these videos in Italy?

[@benw9949]

How many praenomen are known, attested? But can we infer from other sources or from either later medieval sources or uses in the daughter Romance languages that any larger set of names existed in Latin? How many (and what) were the family/tribal (nomen) names, perhaps listed somewhere? I suppose we only have a fraction attested of the actual sets.

[@happygamersloth9161]

Hi Luke. I'm learing Latin from LLPSI Familia Romana that you recomend so much and it is great. And I have a question, is there any book to learn Italian similar to LLPSI?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Yes there is, here is Ayan Academy kzbin.info/aero/PLf8XN5kNFkhfQonvCySTrKEUV742WzshJ

[@happygamersloth9161]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Gratias tibi ago!

[@utinam4041]

I already knew about Roman names but this was interesting all the same. It's not the subject so much as the way you tell it.

[@livecarsonreaction]

The spinning child as you explained Roman praenomina sent me

[@impCaesarAvg]

Aduerbum tertium expōnēbam, sed quaestiōnem explicātam videō. Valēte, amīcī.

[@cmyk8964]

Mark “Chickpea” Tully sounds like a jazz musician lol

[@donato_donato]

Hi, I'm almost sure that "Octavius" comes from a gens, the gens Octavia. If I'm not mistaken Augustus himself used to belong to that tribe before being adopted by Julius Cesar - he was born as Gaius Octavius Turinus, and then became Caius Jiulius Caesar Octavianus, as it was the habit among the romans for adopted children (males) to get the three names of their adopted fathers plus the adjective referred to their own tribe of origin. A surname of a surname, more or less 😀

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Yup

[@ilyaslebleu1947]

Wasn't Marcus Agrippa's original nomen Vispanius?

[@neonschaf]

I wonder how sisters had played in their childhood: "Secunda, venī." "Mane, Tertia, tam non possum properare celeriter!"

[@LordTelperion]

I'm reminded of the dreaded call of an angry parent yelling out our fist, middle, and last names...just to be absolutely clear we were the target of their ire. I imagine that call was needed in a much more practical way in large Roman families, lol. ;-)

[@erraticonteuse]

FYI, I'm watching this my cats: I'm here for Roman naming conventions, they're here for the pigeons on the fountain.

[@MiMi-nl5fr]

Why in the compounds of verbs there is at least one vowel that changes? (Sorry for my English) Like con+quaerere>conquirere

[@tiagorodrigues3730]

In very old Latin (certainly before Plautus in the 3rd Century BC), Latin stress was actually always on the first syllable. At that time, when a compound verb was created, the stress would be on the preposition, which would cause the former stressed syllable in the simple verb to become unstressed and more indistinct, which facilitated the change in the vowel quality towards *i* and *u*.

[@MiMi-nl5fr]

@@tiagorodrigues3730 thanks

[@ogunsiron2]

a little bit off topic but i've been wondering for a long time what was the every day name of ancient famous people like gaulish Vercingetorix. the -rix in his name indicates that he was a king. so Vercingetorix is like a description of what role that man played. but what name did his parents use? what name did his wife use?

[@Sakkura1]

Wow, I was terrified that ad was going to turn out to be for NFTs.

[@obed9300]

I always think the trinomina as a phrase: "Marcus from the Tribe of Tullius, also called Cicero."

[@jonathanwebster7091]

Cognomina were often included after the filiation, indicating their original unofficial nature. For example, "Gaius Julius Gaii Filius Caesar".

[@MonsieurChapeau]

So wait, it is not clear how people addressed each other in ancient Rome, by which name? I suppose it depended on the relationship? Like Julius Caesar's mum would call him Gaius rather than Caesar? I am wondering how this naming system impacted notions of individual identity if one was called, for instance, Julia III out of 5 sisters called Julia and in the light of the importance of clan reputation. This discussion around names has made me wonder about Roman notions of personal identity and how these compare to those we hold today (in the Western world broadly speaking).

[@jonathanwebster7091]

@@MonsieurChapeau Roman women didn't change their name on marriage, which is why it wasn't such a huge matter for women only having one (or at the most, two) names. A Julia marrying a Cornelius would obviously stand out in a family with a Marcus Cornelius Sulla, a Marcus Cornelius Sulla Junior, a Gaius Cornelius Sulla and a Cornelia.

[@jonathanwebster7091]

@@MonsieurChapeau it actually evolved over time: originally, most Romans (like other civilisations around at the same time) only had the one name, the name that became the praenomina. However, over time, and certainly by the early days of the republic, the nomen comes into use, and so most people would be known during the heyday of the Republic by their praenomen and nomen, with the praenomen being used by family and close friends. Women eventually by the end of the Republic and the start of the Empire came to only have the one name: the feminine version of their father's nomen (so, for example, Gaius Julius Caesar's daughter was Julia), but originally, women also has praenomina (which were simply feminine versions of the common male ones-so, Marca, Gaia, Lucia, etc), but they fell out of use, mainly because they were superfluous: women not being able to have a 'public' role in Roman society-for example, they couldn't enter politics or join the military-meant it wasn't really necessary. Over the next two or three centuries; the cognomen comes into use, at first unofficially, and were originally nicknames, sometimes for some notable feature of the bearer, or some deed, or other descriptive feature. For example, 'Severus' means 'severe', 'Albus' means 'white', et cetera. This helped to distinguish separate branches of a family from one another, eg the family branch of the Julii Caesares (Julius Caesar's family) from for example the related Julii Libones. By the first century BC, these had become official, and began featuring in inscriptions, usually in the form Praenomen-Nomen-Filiation-Cognomen. Even at this point though, there were some prominent families without cognomina: for example, Mark Anthony was simply 'Marcus Antonius', with no cognomen, and Marius was simply 'Gaius Marius'. Increasingly, as the empire expanded, the praenomen became less and less important, and became somewhat fossilised, with the cognomen becoming more and more the identifying name. So you often get brothers with the same praenomina: for example the Emperors Titus and Domitian were Titus Flavius Vespasianus and Titus Flavius Domitianus respectively, something that would have been unthinkable during the republic. What really changed things was the Edict of Caracalla, also known as the Constitutio Antonina; where the Emperor granted Roman citizenship to all inhabitants of the empire who were not slaves. As a result, many, many inhabitants of the Empire, especially in the Eastern provinces, took on the Praenomen and nomen of the Emperor Caracalla: "Marcus Aurelius"; and just used their own, original name as a cognomen. So someone originally called, for example, Aristarkhos would become 'Marcus Aurelius Aristarchus'. As a result of this, the praenomen and to a lesser extent the nomen, became much less important, because all 'M. Aurelius' in an inscription by this point meant simply that this person was a Roman citizen. Female citizens newly enfranchised by the edict of Caracalla would become 'Aurelia'. The Praenomen kind of spluttered on for a century or so after that: the last Emperor with a Praenomen is Constantine the Great, although Praenomen did survive amongst the old Roman senatorial aristocracy, for example the Aurelii Symmacchi family, or which Quintus Aurelius Symacchius was the most prominent member, kept using the traditional Tria nomina system right up to the end of the western empire, in the 400s. Another place praenomina had a fossilised existence is in filiations ('son of') in inscriptions: for example, a man might still be referred to as say, "Lucius Julius Gaii Filius Libo", even though it would probably be very unlikely that anyone by this point would have referred to his father as 'Gaius'. The nomen survived the crisis of the second century and the Tetrachy, but it became a kind of status or class identifier: because nearly all regular Roman citizens would now be 'Aurelius' or 'Aurelia', the military and political elite adopted first the nomen of the Emperor Diocletian -Valerius-and then later, the nomen of the Emperor Constantine the Great-Flavius, to show their high status -which is why a lot of prominent Romans of the 400s and 500s, like Stilicho, Aetius and Belisarius are all 'Flavius _'. The use of the nomen again, carried on for a couple of centuries -the last prominent Roman who is a 'Flavius' is the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian II, and the last examples of ordinary Romans using a nomen is in the 600sAD in Egypt, just before the Arab conquest. After that, the majority Greek speaking Eastern Roman Empire reverted to a single name system, the cognomen now being the only name used-for example, the Emperors of the Amorian and Macedonian dynasty have only a single name (unless you count 'Imperator', 'Caesar' and 'Augustus' as names), and there's about a 200 year period before surnames become added to the cognomina, resulting in a two name system similar to the western convention-names like Lekapenos, Angelos, Komnenos, Kantekuzenos, Paleologos, etc, which all come from either patronymics or referred to place names in Anatolia.

[@jonathanwebster7091]

@@MonsieurChapeau Roman naming customs aren't really as static as people like to think: we only really think of the three name 'tria nomina' as the default because the late republic and the early Empire are the periods that are most studied. But in reality, it was simply one stage in a development, from a single to a double name system, to a three name system, then back.

[@marcusholbert2525]

I like this video

[@jsonitsac]

Would have been a good opportunity to talk about the vocative case a bit? How often was it written down? In his letter would Cicero have called his brother “Quinte”?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Vocative case is in the next video of this type! Coming soon

[@thelevelbeyondhuman]

Enjoying your time in Italy Luke?

[@kristianpahe4639]

Would be cool to have a sort of nickname of "The Big Garbanzo." But looking it up, it might be referring to warts of an ancestor.

[@rogerioramosfisico]

Admiro os seus vídeos. Abraços do Brasil! (Eapero que me entenda :)

[@Cyclonus2377]

"In nomine Domini" - "In the name of the L-rd." The phrase inscribed on the blade of King Richard Plantagenet - a.k.a. Richard the Lionheart. I see that Latin word, and I often think of this 🗡🗡🗡🗡🤴🤴🤴🤴

[@Niveum]

When I see that phrase, I think of the play The Crucible: "In nomine Domini Sabaoth sui filiique ite ad infernos."

[@jakubolszewski8284]

Isn't -ó ending just cgonominem ending?

[@eriathdien]

The first time I heard the name Cicero (Cicerón in Spanish) I thought it impossible for it to be related to "chícharo" (chickpea in some Spanish dialects). But, there you have it xD

[@LNTutorialsNL]

In Greece half of the population is either called Giorgios, Yiannis or Dimitri, so even when signing up for a gym, you are identified as “Giorgios son of Dimitri”

[@FarfettilLejl]

You forgot Kostas! :D

[@LNTutorialsNL]

@@FarfettilLejl Ah yeah that's another common one, but quite rare where I live

[@FarfettilLejl]

@@LNTutorialsNL really? That's interesting, are you willing to share what part of the Greek speaking world you live on?

[@markcolinescanillaabliter6474]

"Kostas" is also a Greek transliteration of the Latin name "Constans".

[@LNTutorialsNL]

@@markcolinescanillaabliter6474 Doesnt Kostas come from Constantinos? Like Nikos from Nikolaos

[@oudjarten]

Gratiam tibi

[@tm2bow653]

Modern Greeks names are usually in the following order : 1 first name 2 first name of the father 3 last name. Even on Books they used to put the name of the father's author in the middle - or the first letter of it. Nowadays I can see this ''disappeared'' on many books. The influence of western Europe I guess ? .

[@matthewheald8964]

If I understand this correctly, the praenomen & nomen contrast isn't too different from English first name/last name (literally no clue how the cognomen works (maybe as a second last name?); might need to rewatch that part). In English, there's sort of a set (albeit larger than the Roman) group of "accepted names", if you will, so first names aren't necessarily that unique. I know four different Calebs, two different Isaacs, etc. & if I have a kid (a boy, let's say), it'd be super weird if I named him anything I wanted to, like Firstborn or Motherseyes or something like that no matter how relevant it was to him as a person. As for the nomen, it's not super unusual for English speakers to address their friends or acquaintances by last name, e.g. I have a friend named Nate Jackson & I greet him with something like "what's up, Jackson?". But of course that wouldn't help at all within his immediate family. Let me know if I misunderstood any of this. Edit: Rewatched it, but still no idea about the cognomen; anyone care to explain?

[@ianbrady9223]

Not to detract from how interesting this topic is, but Spinning Child was the highlight of this video.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Agreed. The camerawoman thought so too.

[@stsk1061]

One thing that was missing from the video is how Romans would actually refer to each other. How would Caesar's friends call him? Caesar? Julius? Gaius Julius? Gaius Caesar?

[@sauer3587]

Did luke serve in the Army?

[@marquesdevalera7403]

The commonness of certain surnames in Latin speaking Christian countries still happens today. I was walking down a busy street in Granada Spain with my cousins and just to see how common Maria was as I yelled out Marie! I counted over 12 women turned to see who was calling their name. Lol

[@rambleswolf]

10:51 - You say that, in LLPSI, Iulius's praenomen is Gaius, but (on p.85 (cap. XII)) his praenomen is said to be Lucius: "Quod nomen est patri? Ei nomen est 'Lucius Iulius Balbus'. Viro Romano tria nomina sunt. 'Lucius' est praenomen, id est nomen primum; 'Balbus' cognomen est." Can't believe you forgot about a fellow Lucius! ;P

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Ah, I was thinking of Julius Caesar

[@rambleswolf]

@@polyMATHY_Luke Ah, I was wondering if that was the case! I was like "Calling him 'Gaius Julius' is a bit on the nose, Orberg" XD

[@FreddieHg37]

I always had the slight intuition that this is why the protagonist character from "Gladiator" is called Maximus Decimus Meridius, because he was somehow the tenth of his siblings or brothers, or because he was the tenth in a line of men with the same name in his family. But now this is more confusing, would that mean that he was the oldest because of "Maximus" or is it that the Praenōmen? Or is this is this some alternative configuration of the name where the Cognōmen "Maximus" goes first? or is "Meridius" supposed to be the Cognōmen? Or even, is Decimus supposed to be a Nōmen or Praenōmen?.. And yes, I understand that he's just a fictional character.

[@carinajauregui9383]

El PRAENOMEN debió ser DÉCIMO, el NOMEN debió ser MERIDIUS (¿un bárbaro NOMEN hispano?) su COGNOMEN MÁXIMO por ser un gran general. Entonces: DÉCIMO MERIDIO MÁXIMO sería más adecuado.

[@Raycheetah]

So, the on-site portion of the video ended just before those Carabinieri arrested you? =^[.]~=

[@clydecessna737]

Did they ever fix the roof on that building behind you?

[@Regular_Decorated_Emergency]

Plot twist: their names were actually first names.

[@mytube001]

All these abbreviations, yet so much available space on the line! Pfff! :D

[@brendanward2991]

Why was Quartus never adopted as a praenomen? Does it sound like a rude word?

[@valeregaube959]

The ancient Romans had a saying: "Nōmen est ōmen". Newly-united couples would often call a haruspex to inquire about the will of the gods and establish a list of optimal names to give to their children. These lists were always around four names long; sometimes shorter, rarely longer. This is why the praenōmina "Prīmus" to "Quārtus", although they existed, were relatively rare and why "Quīntus" and upwards were, on the other hand, very common. There is one numeral praenōmen which was never given and that was "Nonus" ("the 9th"), because the Romans didn't like the idea of a name starting with "Non", as if it were a negation. "Nōmen est ōmen".

[@PauperspirituBlogspot]

A bit of an offtopic question. “Blessed are the poor in spirit " (Matthew 5:3) is "Beati pauperes spiritu". What is singular for "poor in spirit"? Pauper spiritu?

[@christophzeit6282]

Singular would be: beatus pauper spiritu.

[@PauperspirituBlogspot]

@@christophzeit6282 thanks!

[@SomasAcademy]

The abbreviated names remind me a bit of something fairly common in the Islamic world today, where "Muhammad" and its variations are so common as male given names that they're often just written as "M."

[@pxrposewithnopurpose5801]

dang

[@nicholasdominic2825]

Perhaps one day you can train me ecliseastical was troublesome I hope to meet you.

[@MagisterMeletus]

He, uh, was consul for the third time, didn’t build the building the third time. Yeah?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Indeed! Grātiās, āmīce. I didn't make that aspect clear since I wasn't concentrating on the correct final translation, but was just filling in some more vocabulary to give context to the praenōmina. Thanks for pointing out that I had made it sound confusing! I was allowing my English to use too much of the Latin syntax, and should have reordered it better in my talk (which wasn't scripted - eheu! the perils...!). This is what happens when some fool like me never gets trained in proper translation techniques 😅

[@Jayvee4635]

So what would Paul the Apostle's name be in Roman? Saulus Benjaminus Pavlus?

[@benpracht2655]

How was travel during Covid to Italy and was is that circular US flag button?

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

My airframe

[@scalemodellingjapan7609]

I'm surprised that there hasn't been a mention of Biggus Dickus or Sillius Soddus yet.

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5erZ5qgrbmHnac

[@bustavonnutz]

The kid spinning in the background made the entire vid