3 ms·
idk, everything i think i know about it i read on wikipedia earlier today lol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praenomen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praenomen
by smegsicle 5y ago
idk, everything i think i know about it i read on wikipedia earlier today lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praenomen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praenomen
"The praenomen was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomen_(Roman_name) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomen_(Roman_name)
"The nomen gentilicium (or simply nomen) was a hereditary name borne by the peoples of ancient Italy"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognomen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognomen
"Initially, it was a nickname, but lost that purpose when it became hereditary. Hereditary cognomina were used to augment the second name, the gens (the family name, or clan name), in order to identify a particular branch within a family"
- thaumasiotes 5y agoHm, fair enough. It seems clear that Caesar's cognomen was hereditary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Julius_Caesar_(governor_of_Asia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaius_Julius_Caesar_(governor_... But this is not a general feature of cognomina; compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovidia_gens#Members https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovidia_gens#Members Looking over some other articles, it looks like hereditary cognomina were an aristocratic feature. This has the funny side effect of more or less ensuring that aristocrats from the same family are very likely to have exactly the same name.