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Agnomen - Blog Posts

abgrundsgott

4 years ago

Roman naming conventions

During Roman Empire, the Romans employed a system of nomenclature, consisting of a combination of personal and family names. It was called Tria Nomina (lit. three names), divided in: praenomen, the name who are normally called with; nomen, which indicated the bloodline of the family or the clan they were from; and cognomen, like surname, which indicated the household such as the modern usage. At times, they would use a third surname, called agnomen, for the ones who were adopted by the new family, but it hadn't a formal use. Between men and women, there were few differences: women usually had father's or husband's praenomen instead of one for theirselves.