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Roman women did not bear the tria nomina, but generally took their father’s nomen in its feminine form as their individual name, often followed by a variant of the cognomen to avoid confusion.

Roman citizens bore three names: a first name (praenomen), a family name (nomen) and a surname (cognomen).

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Praenomen, nomen, cognomen: anatomy of the Roman name

In ancient Rome, a name was not merely an administrative marker: it condensed family history, social rank and membership of a lineage. Free men bore three names (the tria nomina), a practice at first reserved for patricians, then extended to plebeians as they gradually acquired their rights under the Republic. Roman onomastics draws on several kinds of sources: tombstones, literary texts and the whole body of epigraphy.

The name as the citizen’s identity card

Towards the end of the Republic, the full name of a Roman citizen comprised a first name and a family name, followed by a surname.

The praenomen – our first name – was the citizen’s individual designation. In texts it was abbreviated when it preceded the nomen. It could echo a circumstance of birth: Lucius means “born at dawn”, from the Latin lux, lucis, “light”. The number of praenomina was limited: only eighteen main ones are recorded in the first century BCE, and barely a dozen remained in common use under the Empire. The patrician habit of systematically giving the son his father’s praenomen stripped it of its individual character from the second century BCE onwards, hence the growing need for the nomen and the cognomen. This decline became more marked under the Empire: from the third century, the praenomen gradually disappeared from written sources, and the cognomen alone took over the function of individual identification. The praenomen was conferred during a purification ritual (dies lustricus), on the eighth day after birth for girls and the ninth for boys.

In official documents, the full name also included filiation (the father’s praenomen in the genitive followed by f. for filius, sometimes extended to the grandfather with n. for nepos) as well as the name of the tribe (tribus) in which the citizen was enrolled.

The nomen, which generally ends in -us or -ius, was hereditary and constituted the gentile name (nomen gentilicium), that is, the name of the gens (the lineage or clan). It signalled membership of an extended family group whose members all claimed descent from a common ancestor. Most Latin nomina were formed by adding an adjectival suffix, most often -ius, to the stem of an existing word, frequently a praenomen: Marcius derives from Marcus, Sextius from Sextus, Lucilius from Lucius.

The cognomen – the surname – was at first personal, originally used by a few patrician families. Individual in principle, it soon became hereditary and ended up distinguishing one branch of the gens. It could be changed during one’s lifetime. Cognomina could arise from physical characteristics, personal qualities, a trade, a geographical origin or remarkable deeds. Cicero is a surname, cicero, derived from cicer, “chickpea”: according to Plutarch, an ancestor of the family had a wart the size of a chickpea. Nero’s paternal line bore the surname Ahenobarbus (“bronze-bearded”, meaning red-haired).

A victorious general received an additional name, the agnomen, taken from the defeated people or from the feat accomplished: Scipio Africanus defeated the Carthaginians, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus conquered Macedonia, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus subdued Crete. Late grammarians distinguished two broad categories: the cognomen ex virtute, drawn from a heroic episode, and the adoptive cognomen, which recalled the gens of origin.

History usually remembers only the nomen and cognomen of famous Romans, or even the cognomen alone. For the Gracchi, the praenomen is needed to tell the two brothers apart. Cicero’s full name is Marcus Tullius Cicero.

Adoptees exchanged their nomen and cognomen for those of the adopter and added a second cognomen ending in -anus recalling their original gens. The man we know as Augustus was originally called Caius Octavius; after his adoption by Julius Caesar, he became Caius Iulius Caesar Octavianus; after he came to power as princeps, he took the title Augustus as a third cognomen.

A slave was designated only by a single name, or by the word servus. A freedman could take as his nomen that of the master who had freed him, followed by his original name as a cognomen; it was customary for him also to adopt his former master’s praenomen.

Why women had no first name

Women’s names followed a different logic, which changed considerably from the early Republic to Late Antiquity.

Unlike their male counterparts, Roman women did not bear an individual praenomen. From the Republican period onwards, they were designated by the feminine form of their father’s nomen gentilicium: a woman of the gens Aemilia was called Aemilia, a daughter of the gens Cornelia became Cornelia, a descendant of the gens Sempronia bore the name Sempronia. The reason is simple: since a woman did not change her nomen on marriage, this name alone was enough to distinguish her from all other members of the family (parents, brothers) thanks to the gendered endings of Latin.

When there were several sisters, various solutions came into play. Ordinal adjectives could be used – Maior and Minor (“the Elder” and “the Younger”) for two sisters, or Prima, Secunda, Tertia, Quarta to distinguish more. Thus the two daughters of Gaius Laelius Sapiens are known as Laelia Maior and Laelia Minor. These designations could function either as praenomina or as personal cognomina, since the distinction is not always clear-cut in the sources. Note that birth order is not the only criterion of fame: Cornelia Africana usually refers to the younger daughter of Scipio Africanus, not the elder.

A married woman kept her birth name, but could be identified in relation to her husband through the genitive (with uxor, “wife”, understood). Thus Clodia Metelli means “Clodia, [wife] of Metellus”: the birth name Clodia is preserved, while the genitive of the husband’s cognomen specifies which Clodia is meant. Paternal filiation could also be indicated by f. (filia) followed by the father’s praenomen in the genitive. Children generally took their father’s name; in the imperial period, however, they could incorporate the name of their maternal line into their own.

From the late Republic onwards, women often adopted the feminine form of their father’s cognomen, resulting in double names such as Cornelia Sulla, Pompeia Magna or Cornelia Metella. The daughter of Lucius Caecilius Metellus is thus known as Caecilia Metella. These cognomina could take diminutive forms: Agrippina from the masculine Agrippa, Drusilla from Drusus.

For finer distinctions, families used suffixes. The most common was -illa/-ula/-ola (diminutive meaning: “little”), which could indicate a younger relative or simply express affection: Cicero called his daughter Tullia by the diminutive Tulliola, even as an adult and although she had no relative of the same name. The suffix -ina/-inna implied a relationship of filiation: Agrippina marks the daughter of Agrippa, Messalina that of Messala. Rarer, -iana indicated that a father had been adopted into another family, or referred to the maternal line: Ulpia Marciana was the daughter of Marcia and Marcus Ulpius Traianus. Combinations of suffixes also existed, such as Agrippinilla, borne by the wife of the consul of 127, Marcus Gavius Squilla Gallicanus.

• On female cognomina, see: Nuorluoto, Tuomo. Latin Female Cognomina. A Study on the Personal Names of Roman Women. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 146. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2023.