4 ms·

> In Bavaria where I live, the informal convention is also last name first It's probably a Roman thing. Julius Caesar was actually "Caesar, of the gens Julia",

by toyg 3y ago

> In Bavaria where I live, the informal convention is also last name first It's probably a Roman thing. Julius Caesar was actually "Caesar, of the gens Julia", so last-name first. In Italy we also used to list last-name first, particularly in official and military communications. This has changed significantly in the last 40 years, particularly in everyday bureaucracy, but it's still used by police and other bodies.

pomstazlesa 3y ago
Same thing in Hungary.
danmaz74 3y ago
Roman naming conventions were very different from current Italian ones, and Caesar's full name was Gaius Julius Caesar, where Gaius is the closest thing to what we would call a first name. If he had some brothers, they would all have been "Julius Caesar", and only the praenomen would have distinguished them. For example, Julius Caesar's father was also named Gaius Julius Caesar, and had (most likely) a brother whose name was Sextus Julius Caesar.
cge 3y ago
Roman naming conventions[1] technically did have a personal first name that came first and was called that: first name or forename is a reasonably direct translation for praenomen. The complexity is that by the late republic praenomina were largely from such a small set of names that they were not particularly useful to distinguish anyone, and they became somewhat of a formality that would often be omitted. Julius Caesar has the 'group/last' name first because it doesn't include his first name at all: including it he would be Gaius Julius Caesar. The cognomen (there Caesar), meanwhile, was a bit of an inconsistent mess that in various times and contexts could be personal, hereditary, honorific, given, adopted... [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_conventions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_conventions
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  Hereditary cognomina were used to distinguish different major branches of large, powerful clans. Some sort of device to specify which subbranch of an enormous group you're talking about appears to be necessary in every place that has such enormous groups; in imperial China, then as now, vast swathes of the population were covered by just a handful of surnames, but the practice developed of referring to notable families by a combination of their name and the location where they were dominant. So Caesar's close relatives were all also called Caesar, which is how it got to be an imperial title. You might think that with the original cognomen locked into place for such families, members would get a second cognomen so that there would be at least one part of their name that could identify them. But apparently not.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    They _sometimes_ did, I think. Here's one (non-Julian) example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Caecilius_Metellus_Numidicus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Caecilius_Metellus_Num...
  - Tainnor 3y ago
    Some famous people got additional names, agnomina, such as "Africanus". And Roman emperors were later known for inflationary use of such designations. You could run a minor campaign on the Rhine and call yourself Germanicus for example. The whole part about the Roman naming system indicating heritage became even more complicated when Caracalla (properly named Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) made every free man in the Empire a Roman citizen and now basically everyone was called "Marcus Aurelius" without ever having had any ties to the Aurelii family.
puszczyk 3y ago
In Poland informally it’s always <given name> <last name>. Formally, it depends most places are on the same as informal, but particularly military and some other bureaucracies will use <last name> <given name>. I always thought this is a holdout from the pre-computer days to make it easier to sort alphabetically (last names are a bit better distributed than the popular first names). In France they seem to prefer <LAST NAME> (yes, all caps) <First name> even for less formal things.
- zerocrates 3y ago
  I've seen the capitals convention to designate family names in several places, like with people from East Asian countries corresponding in English. The point is to take away ambiguity about which name order is being used and therefore how to address the writer.
- cafeinux 3y ago
  Not sure how it is done in other countries, but it's very likely that the custom of using the last name in all caps exists elsewhere. AFAIK, it comes from the fact that some last names are also common first names, so it's easier to distinguish between the two like this, as the order isn't really that important. For example, if I see a DIDIER Bernard or a Bernard DIDIER, I know I need to call him M. Didier in a formal context or just Bernard in an informal one.
- smcl 3y ago
  I've seen this in Czech too - sometimes lastname first but maybe more in old-school things. I think I'm registered with the Czech FA as "McSurname Sean" :-D Also this "reversal" had me confused when we hosted a French exchange student without knowing French (I spoke German, but the teachers knew my family were happy to host if they needed). His name was written like "KHALID Mohamed" and he was very polite so he didn't really correct me when I was calling him "Khalid", and since I was unfamiliar with Algerian names I had experience to suggest "Khalid" was more surname-y than firstname-y. It sorted itself out after a day or two though :-)
Archelaos 3y ago
> It's probably a Roman thing. There is very likely no connection. The introduction of surnames in Germany took place in the 15th century (somewhat earlier in German speaking parts of Switzerland). In Franconia, the "ethnic" distinct northern part of which is today Bavaria and which was never a part of the Roman empire, the last-name first custom also occurs in a few places such as Bamberg.
- weinzierl 3y ago
  The Romans weren't but Napoleon was, so maybe it is more of an indirect Roman influence?
throaway230831 3y ago
Gaius (also written Caius) was his given name, Ivlivs (Julius) the family name, Caesar the cognomen. In inscriptions (short): CAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR In speaking he would (in English;)) rather formally introduce himself as "Gaius of the Iulii, called Caesar". His mother called him Gaius, his peers called him Caesar once he got or choose?) this name.
- qwytw 3y ago
  Wouldn't Ceasar be much closer to his last name,though? It's definitely not his personal nickname. His father was 'Gaius Julius Caesar' his grandfather (supposedly the first 'Ceasar') was 'Sextus Julius Caesar'. The Cognomen is presumable something that evolved as a way to tell apart people belonging to different branches of the same family/clan because the number of first names was very limited.
  - throaway230831 3y ago
    I stand corrected: in case of Caesar, it was already hereditary in his family. Initially, it was more of a nickname or even an earned name, like with Caesars contemporary Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognomen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognomen
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - qwytw 3y ago
      > Magnus Nicer than his other nickname 'adulescentulus carnifex ("teenage butcher") ' I guess.. But yeah, the cognomen seems weird/hard to understand e.g. Pompey's dad was called Strabo but he seems to have never used that name himself, while other like Ceasa, Metellus or Cicero were pretty much just surnames. Romans probably found their naming system as confusing as we do so they started using nicknames ad hoc. It was even more awful if you were a woman, you technically didn't even have your own name until the imperial period. You and your sisters would just be called Aemilia I, Aemilia II, III etc (or the 'elder'/'younger'). if your father was belonged to the Aemilius clan for example...
darkwater 3y ago
> In Italy we also used to list last-name first, particularly in official and military communications. This has changed significantly in the last 40 years, particularly in everyday bureaucracy, but it's still used by police and other bodies. Only that... it didn't? The vast majority of bureaucracy and even many private entities in Italy use and strongly prefer the "Surname Birthname" format.

by toyg 3y ago

pomstazlesa 3y ago

Same thing in Hungary.

danmaz74 3y ago

Roman naming conventions were very different from current Italian ones, and Caesar's full name was Gaius Julius Caesar, where Gaius is the closest thing to what we would call a first name. If he had some brothers, they would all have been "Julius Caesar", and only the praenomen would have distinguished them. For example, Julius Caesar's father was also named Gaius Julius Caesar, and had (most likely) a brother whose name was Sextus Julius Caesar.

cge 3y ago

Roman naming conventions[1] technically did have a personal first name that came first and was called that: first name or forename is a reasonably direct translation for praenomen. The complexity is that by the late republic praenomina were largely from such a small set of names that they were not particularly useful to distinguish anyone, and they became somewhat of a formality that would often be omitted. Julius Caesar has the 'group/last' name first because it doesn't include his first name at all: including it he would be Gaius Julius Caesar. The cognomen (there Caesar), meanwhile, was a bit of an inconsistent mess that in various times and contexts could be personal, hereditary, honorific, given, adopted... [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_conventions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_conventions

thaumasiotes 3y ago
Hereditary cognomina were used to distinguish different major branches of large, powerful clans. Some sort of device to specify which subbranch of an enormous group you're talking about appears to be necessary in every place that has such enormous groups; in imperial China, then as now, vast swathes of the population were covered by just a handful of surnames, but the practice developed of referring to notable families by a combination of their name and the location where they were dominant. So Caesar's close relatives were all also called Caesar, which is how it got to be an imperial title. You might think that with the original cognomen locked into place for such families, members would get a second cognomen so that there would be at least one part of their name that could identify them. But apparently not.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  They _sometimes_ did, I think. Here's one (non-Julian) example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Caecilius_Metellus_Numidicus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintus_Caecilius_Metellus_Num...
- Tainnor 3y ago
  Some famous people got additional names, agnomina, such as "Africanus". And Roman emperors were later known for inflationary use of such designations. You could run a minor campaign on the Rhine and call yourself Germanicus for example. The whole part about the Roman naming system indicating heritage became even more complicated when Caracalla (properly named Marcus Aurelius Antoninus) made every free man in the Empire a Roman citizen and now basically everyone was called "Marcus Aurelius" without ever having had any ties to the Aurelii family.

puszczyk 3y ago

In Poland informally it’s always <given name> <last name>. Formally, it depends most places are on the same as informal, but particularly military and some other bureaucracies will use <last name> <given name>. I always thought this is a holdout from the pre-computer days to make it easier to sort alphabetically (last names are a bit better distributed than the popular first names). In France they seem to prefer <LAST NAME> (yes, all caps) <First name> even for less formal things.

zerocrates 3y ago
I've seen the capitals convention to designate family names in several places, like with people from East Asian countries corresponding in English. The point is to take away ambiguity about which name order is being used and therefore how to address the writer.
cafeinux 3y ago
Not sure how it is done in other countries, but it's very likely that the custom of using the last name in all caps exists elsewhere. AFAIK, it comes from the fact that some last names are also common first names, so it's easier to distinguish between the two like this, as the order isn't really that important. For example, if I see a DIDIER Bernard or a Bernard DIDIER, I know I need to call him M. Didier in a formal context or just Bernard in an informal one.
smcl 3y ago
I've seen this in Czech too - sometimes lastname first but maybe more in old-school things. I think I'm registered with the Czech FA as "McSurname Sean" :-D Also this "reversal" had me confused when we hosted a French exchange student without knowing French (I spoke German, but the teachers knew my family were happy to host if they needed). His name was written like "KHALID Mohamed" and he was very polite so he didn't really correct me when I was calling him "Khalid", and since I was unfamiliar with Algerian names I had experience to suggest "Khalid" was more surname-y than firstname-y. It sorted itself out after a day or two though :-)

Archelaos 3y ago

> It's probably a Roman thing. There is very likely no connection. The introduction of surnames in Germany took place in the 15th century (somewhat earlier in German speaking parts of Switzerland). In Franconia, the "ethnic" distinct northern part of which is today Bavaria and which was never a part of the Roman empire, the last-name first custom also occurs in a few places such as Bamberg.

weinzierl 3y ago
The Romans weren't but Napoleon was, so maybe it is more of an indirect Roman influence?

throaway230831 3y ago

Gaius (also written Caius) was his given name, Ivlivs (Julius) the family name, Caesar the cognomen. In inscriptions (short): CAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR In speaking he would (in English;)) rather formally introduce himself as "Gaius of the Iulii, called Caesar". His mother called him Gaius, his peers called him Caesar once he got or choose?) this name.

qwytw 3y ago
Wouldn't Ceasar be much closer to his last name,though? It's definitely not his personal nickname. His father was 'Gaius Julius Caesar' his grandfather (supposedly the first 'Ceasar') was 'Sextus Julius Caesar'. The Cognomen is presumable something that evolved as a way to tell apart people belonging to different branches of the same family/clan because the number of first names was very limited.
- throaway230831 3y ago
  I stand corrected: in case of Caesar, it was already hereditary in his family. Initially, it was more of a nickname or even an earned name, like with Caesars contemporary Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognomen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognomen
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - qwytw 3y ago
    > Magnus Nicer than his other nickname 'adulescentulus carnifex ("teenage butcher") ' I guess.. But yeah, the cognomen seems weird/hard to understand e.g. Pompey's dad was called Strabo but he seems to have never used that name himself, while other like Ceasa, Metellus or Cicero were pretty much just surnames. Romans probably found their naming system as confusing as we do so they started using nicknames ad hoc. It was even more awful if you were a woman, you technically didn't even have your own name until the imperial period. You and your sisters would just be called Aemilia I, Aemilia II, III etc (or the 'elder'/'younger'). if your father was belonged to the Aemilius clan for example...

darkwater 3y ago

> In Italy we also used to list last-name first, particularly in official and military communications. This has changed significantly in the last 40 years, particularly in everyday bureaucracy, but it's still used by police and other bodies. Only that... it didn't? The vast majority of bureaucracy and even many private entities in Italy use and strongly prefer the "Surname Birthname" format.