One of the things that people find most confusing about Ancient Rome are the names. Why do some people have three names and some people don't? What's going on with women's names? Why do so many people have the same first name?

I wanted to take a stab at demystifying this a bit. I posted a streamlined version of this over on Instagram, but here's a more detailed rundown.

Note: I pinky promise you don't have to know any of this to enjoy my books, and I've simplified the names as much as possible in my work. But, if you're interested in how Roman names work, read on!

Male names (citizens)

This is the classic "three name" structure that you might associate with Ancient Rome, though this could vary by class and era. Sometimes only the first two were used.

Let's use Gaius Valerius Catullus as an example (a real poet, and a side character in The Tribune Temptation). 

• Gaius - praenomen
  • Given name
  • Likely only used by immediate family
  • By the Republic, there were only about 18 praenomina used which leads to a lot of repeated first names
• Valerius - nomen
  • Family name, akin to modern last name
  • Every male in this family would have the same name here (there could theoretically be multiple people called Gaius Valerius)
• Catullus - cognomen
  • A (mostly) unique name that distinguishes members of the same family
  • This is how you'd address someone in casual conversation
  • Could be earned in your lifetime (e.g. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus - Pompey the Great) or random

Female names (citizens)

Female names were based on the feminine form of the family name, e.g. Julia, daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar.

Multiple daughters could be differentiated by numerical suffixes - Julia Prima, Julia Secunda, etc. Major/Minor suffixes were also used to distinguish sisters, e.g. Antonia Major and Antonia Minor (the two daughters of Mark Antony).

Women didn’t change their names after marriage, but in some cases took on the possessive form of their husband’s name, e.g. Clodia Metelli (Clodia of Metellus).

In The Tribune Temptation, the heroine Crispina is named thus because she's the daughter of the Crispinus family.

Enslaved names

Enslaved people were given a single name by their master. Names could reflect their ethnic origin, be inspired by mythology, or be randomly chosen. Often it was “fashionable” to give slaves Greek names, regardless if they were from Greece. For example, Cicero had slaves named Sositheus, Dionysus, Pollex, and Acastus. These are all Greek-derived names, with Dionysus being the name of a Greek god.

I took some liberties with this with Aelius, the formerly enslaved hero of The Tribune Temptation. It's mentioned that his mother named him Aelius because she thought the name sounded dignified. I'm honestly not sure how common it was for an enslaved mother to be allowed to name her child; I guess we can assume the master just didn't care in this situation. Also, the name Aelius is the name of an existing Roman family. Realistically, it's probably unlikely that she would have chosen (or been allowed to choose) that name for her child, but my headcanon is that she heard the name somewhere, liked it, and decided to call her kid that and no one cared enough to stop her.

Names of freedmen and women

Freedmen took on their former master’s praenomen and nomen, and used their “slave name” as their cognomen. For example, Marcus Tullius Cicero freed his slave Tiro, who became known as Marcus Tullius Tiro. 

Freedwomen took the feminine form of their former master’s family name and added it to their slave name. A woman named Melissa freed by Julius would become Julia Melissa.

Written names often included the letter “L” as an abbreviation for libertus/liberta (freedman/woman) to make their status clear. Here's an example: M. Aemilius M. L. Felix stands for Marcus Aemilius Marci libertus Felix. This indicates a slave named Felix, freed by Marcus Aemilius.

In The Tribune Temptation, Aelius's full name is Marcus Trebonianus Aelius Herminius. Aelius is his given name, and Marcus Trebonianus is the name of his former master. Herminius is the name of his adopted stepfather. I have no idea how names worked for freedmen who were later adopted...so I just made something up that sounded plausible. 🫣 He mostly is known by Aelius Herminius in the context of the novel in order to simplify things.

Gladiator names

Gladiators took “stage names” that made them sound fierce and/or reflected their origins. For example, the name Spartacus was used by historical kings in Thrace, the region where the gladiator Spartacus was from. The name of the famous gladiator Flamma (who was a loose inspiration for Ferox in Gladiator’s Embrace) means “The Flame," which is a pretty badass gladiator name in my opinion. 🔥

In my Imperial Games series, I went with one descriptive name and two mythological names for my three gladiator characters:

• Ferox: wild, ferocious
• Penthesilea: a mythological Amazon queen 
• Jason: a mythological hero
  

I hope this helped break down the nuances of Roman naming conventions!