The Romans gave themselves three names, although their names are a bit different from our typical three names. This video covers the basics of the praenomen, nomen, and cognomen.
@AURCHAN The one thing that doesnt change over time is names. I am Samuel, in 6000 the equivelent of Samuel might be Iamael, but I will be forever, Samuel.
For those curious about how this system changes over time, by the Imperial period of Roman history, the cognomen comes to takeover as the informal/personal name. Most Roman families never had a cognomen that signalled a family branch, as most were not distinguished enough to even warrant one (e.g. the family of Mark Antony, or Gaius Marius' family). Rather, it was occasionally adopted as another personal name but not passed on (e.g. Mark Antony's dad Marcus Antonius Creticus, who did not pass on his cognomen to his son). During the imperial period, the enfranchisement and patronage systems results in huge numbers of people all bearing the same family name without any real connection of relation to each other. You can see this, for example, in the massive amounts of Gallo-Roman bearing the name Julius as their nomen (from the first Roman dynasty of the Julio-Claudians). The cognomen becomes the place of a personal distinguishing name, and it's visible in names like Gaius Julius Vindex, Julius Classicus, Julius Civilis, Gnaeus Julius Agricola, etc. In 212 AD Caracalla gives an edict making all free men citizens, which results in TONS of families taking on the name Marcus Aurelius. This is why you see so many emperors of the period afterward bearing this name (e.g. Maximian, Probus); they all had descended from obscure families of little significance to the Roman state previously. It's also why inscriptions from the Late Roman Imperial period pretty much all have Marcus Aurelius in the beginning, even in cases where another family name appear after it: Aurelius became a name denoting basic social class. Constantine follows in this trend, and his family nomen Flavius becomes a title that statesmen take on following his dynasty's reign. Most of the early Byzantine Emperors all bear the name Flavius, and some Arab Ghassanids have a form of Flavius in their name due to their alliances with the Romans. By the late imperial period, the praenomen has fallen out of use, the nomen has shifted to become a mixture of family/social class naming, and the cognomen has taken over as the true informal distinguishing name.
Why did we stop making names longer? We even shortened them! As you said, Romans used to have just one name until, because of "high" population, they got two names and, then, three. So they needed a third name to avoid confusion when in Italy there were just 1-1.5 million inhabitants. Today there are 60 million Italians, about 50 times more people. But here in Italy we only have two names (they're called "nome" and "cognome" but they actually correspond to praenomen and nomen, not nomen and cognomen). Not only we didn't get a longer name, but we removed one name from the tria nomina, so now every person has about... how many? Fifty homonymes, I guess. Nothing to say, just wondering about why people stopped caring about homonymes...
Ruben First of all, we (including present day Italians, I guess) have waaaaaay more first names (a good couple of hundreds) than the Romans did, also we have a much higher pool of family names. This gives us much more options without the need to use third-fourth-etc names. If you think about it, how many identically named acquaintances you have, it would be a rather small number, I presume (and, for official distinction, we have mother's name, which solves the case in 99.9% of the time, if not, we can still throw in date of birth as a "tiebreaker" :)) This was not exactly the case for Romans, where identical names were very common.
I like my name in Spanish. Usually people have first name, second name, and two last names, from their father and mother, respectively, so we have very little chance to have the same name as someone close to us. I actually have three names Brian Mac Ian And my last names are Seguel Friz Which makes me Brian Mac Ian Seguel Friz Although I'd love to have a nickname added to it
probably because the Italian cognome is actually the family name which is the cognomen, since Italians don't use clan names anymore. nome could be called praenomen though, it could just be because it's shorter?
Latin cultures still tend to take both names of their families so they tend to be pretty long. This leads to trouble in places like the US where having more than three names is considered abnormal and sometimes not even available on birth certificates.
At least in Portugal and in Brazil there was a time where noble people could have +10 names, like Pedro de Alcântara Francisco António João Carlos Xavier de Paula Miguel Rafael Joaquim José Gonzaga Pascoal Cipriano Serafim - or Dom Pedro I for short.
In Classical Latin, the SC in Scipio is just that, SK. The rules of syllabification say that you split up the g and n in cog-no-men, but not in Gnae-us (Cnae-us). It's customary for English speakers to treat the G/C as a silent letter, but not necessarily to the Romans.
i really enjoy, appreciate and learn quickly from this man’s teaching style. truly excited about learning the latin language, when exploring this channel/teacher. Gratius tibi ago 😊🙏
I've always recommended going with a good textbook like "Learn to Read Latin" or "Wheelock's Latin" to start (for adults) or the Cambridge Latin Course (for everyone, especially pre-adults), and using my videos to supplement the text. The one thing I can't provide is active practice with the language (either through grammatical exercises or translations), and that's where the text's activities will come in handy.
@riverboy1852 I suppose you could consider mine the "restored classical" pronunciation, taken as best we can from the ancient grammarians and their description of how Latin was pronounced, at least by the educated elite. However, when I'm talking to my students in English, I tend to use the more modern pronunciation, which I learned from my British teachers. So Caesar is See-zar, praetor is pree-ter, and aedile is ee-dal.
It's not quite restored pronunciation. It sounds like a hybrid of the modern English pronunciation and the restored pronunciation. Some differences that stick out include the aspiration of the C, phonemic vowel length, glottal stops, certain diphthongs, and certain vowel qualities.
@latintutorial Thanks so much. I have been studying Titus for awhile now, but I have been having difficulty with family members. for instance, Lucius, i can't find out if he an older or younger brother. But I can suspect he's younger. But his father is never mentioned, and with so many old roman politicians killed in the 2 punic war it not hard to imagine the chaos that went on in rome.. Thanks for everything again, and you video really helped.
@isaacBrockofthe41 Flaminius' father would have either the same or different praenomen (the first name), but the nomen and cognomen (names 2 and 3) would have remained the same. So your _____ Quinctius Flamininus. I can't find a reference for his father in Plutarch. The Flaminius Nepos (note the spelling of Flaminius) who died at Lake Trasimene, is not related, and they were members of different clans (gentes): gens Quinctia and gens Flaminia.
Love this explanation, finally helped me clear up the confusion with the names. That said, why are ancient Romans only referred to by their nomen and cognomen, with their praenomen usually being omitted (Julius Caesar for example)?
By the late republic and early empire, There were only a dozen praenomina By the time of constantine, people ended up ommiting praenomena entirely and instead just used something like 3-5 cognomens
Except Octavian didn't really use the agnomen Octavianus, although by convention he could have. Modern historians refer to him as Octavius prior to his adoption, and Octavian until he assumed the title Augustus. But Octavian is used by modern historians more to distinguish him from Julius Caesar, although that's how he referred to himself so as to assume the inherited glory and influence of his 'father'.
Ubisoft should use this video for research on their rumored Assassin's Creed Legion game. It'll help a lot in keeping with the historical authenticity of ancient Rome.
Actually a quick correction if you don't mind. Neil-Patrick Harris is actually a compost name instead of Patrick being his traditional "middle name". He had another name after that which is his actual middle name but his first name it's Neil-Patrick. Irrelevant to the point you were making but I just thought I would share this. I love your videos!
Nice to see a Roman name related video where the narrator actually knows what he is talking about. However, there is one mistake in it: As it was mentioned, it was customary for adopted men to add their old _nōmen_ in reformed with "-iānus" suffix, so following that practice, after the adoption Gāius Octavius would have changed his name to Gāius Julius Caesar Octaviānus. However, there is no evidence that he ever actually did so. Thus, it is incorrect to claim that "he changed his name to Gāius Julius Caesar Octaviānus".
Wow, that's quite an assumption for a youtube audience, even mine. I've taken to including macra whenever they occur in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, as a general rule.
Great videos! Can I ask a question, though? Why don't you trill your r's? Is it because you don't believe the Romans did, or because it's quite difficult to do? "Drusilla" sounds much less Roman when pronounced with the American 'arr'!
Do you use voluntarily an English pronunciation to Latin word or in US this is the pronunciation taught at school? I am asking because I studied Latin in Rome but here it is used a completely different pronunciation...
From my experience, the pronunciation taught in Italy is different from that taught in the US. So, for example, we teach the hard c always, whereas Caesar in Italy has a "ch" sound.
Pablo = his own name Diego = his paternal grandfather José = his father (also his paternal great-grandfather) Francisco de Paula = from San Francisco de Paula (St. Francis of Paola) Juan Nepomuceno = from Juan Nepomuceno Blasco Barroso (his godfather) María de los Remedios = from María de los Remedios Alarcón Herrera (his godmother) Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Martir Patricio Clito = for San Cipriano (St. Cyprian), "of the Holy Trinity, Martyr Patrician of Clito" Ruiz = his father's surname y = "and" (double-barrel naming) Picasso = his mother's surname
How do you pronounce praenomen???? The English prononciation of the E always appears. Well this tutorial isn't bad. Rather interesting but still the classical prononciation is very English
so, could the nomen be a name that is commonly considered a cognomen? I here to learn latin for my persona in a historical society and i am also trying to pick a name. the problem is that i don't have the full triple name.
The Praenomen is a lot like the middle name in modern names, nobody really uses it, but it's selected anyway. The Nomen is a lot like the first name, everybody uses it and usually use it first. Cognomen is the last name.
I feel like it would be very hard to distinguish the names of a bunch of people in the same family as they are nearly all the same and based upon the rest of the family
Or more specifically, there are people about whom there is confusion among historians because they have the same name. Check out the disambiguation page on Wikipedia for some names, and you’ll see that you’re onto something!
Plebians used the tria nomina, but were slower to adopt the cognomen. But that happened in the 2nd century BC, before the time of Caesar, Cicero. In imperial times, the cognomen was standard for everyone.
I am from Philippines and having triple or quadruple name is not new to our country and when we fill up forms it would take time and space given in papers
Lewis & Short say Gaius is trisyllabic: Gāĭus (less correctly Cāĭus ; “trisyl.,” Cat. 10, 30; Mart. 9, 22, 12; 11, 36, 8); gen. Gāi (voc. Gāi, Mart. 10, 16, 1), m., and Gāĭa , ae, f. for Gavius; from gaudeo, a Roman prœnomen, usu. written C.
@latintutorial I'm looking into one of my favourite romans. Titus Quinctius Flamininus. I'm trying figure out something. I found a roman called Gaius Flamininus Nepos, but I wondering if he's related or his father or something. Titus had a brother called Lucius Quinctius Flamininus. So what would their father be called? would it be "blank" Quinctius Flamininus. I'm sorry if i'm wasting your time but I keep getting confused
@@aster965 At the time Caesarian section births had an extremely high ( like almost 100% ) fatality rate so the fact that Gaius Julius Caesar's mom lived to old age means she most likely had no kids that way and was able to give birth to Gaius naturally. It is *maybe* possible she could have been the like one in a million women to survive such a procedure, but if so you'd really think that Gaius would play that up for propaganda and that more contemporary writers would have made mention of it, but as far as I'm aware no surviving account from within his lifetime does. Instead, this tale of his birth started showing up later by the time the Caesars were already viewed as basically divine and is most likely quasi-religious propaganda. Now I'm not a degreed historian, but this is just what I know from what I've been told and some quick research to confirm it. I recommend you look it up yourself or ask somebody who specializes in Roman history..
Ok, I have a question. What sound does the GN make in Latin? Because you said Cognomen with the G and N being two different sounds but also Gnaeus but pronounced it like the Spanish ñ. Also while on the subject, is the SC like in Scipio prounced like Skipio? Or is the SC like Italian pronounced SH? Thanks in advance!
Linguistically "nomen" does not come from a word meaning know, it was falsely connected to "gnosco" there is not evidence of this being the case and doesn't make sense lingustically, "nomen" is related to the English word "name"
Imperials and the Empire are indeed inspired by Ancient Rome. They in fact "copied" the military (the legatus and legions for example, or just their uniform), while nearly all Imperial names are Latin (General Tullius) or French-Italian-ish (Adrianne Avenicci).
Interesting, but the pronunciation is kind of weird. When I studied latin we learned the roman pronunciation (more closely to the modern italian). The word cognomen for example. In modern italian, last name is called "cognome". where the "gn" sounds like the "ñ" in spanish. Also the diphthongs "ae", "oe" sound like the regular "e". For Example the word "Phoenix" is read "Fenix" which interestingly is how the bird is called in modern spanish.
Another hard pronunciation is the Iu like Julius Caesar ( k-eye-sar) - no J's in Latinin Ancient Rome , until the Medieval Age , just like for Jewish name of Judah - Iudaerorum, just Jews, as in the sign on the cross for Jesus' Passion, Pontius Pilate put a sign ,/ Ie sus ( pron I e Yaysus ) Nazarenus =Nazarene , Regnum = King , Iudaerorum of the Jews over His head, Iu is - Ie is not easy in words,
I thought Gaius was a title and not a name. Specifically I thought it denoted the head of a gens or clan. So Gaius Julius Ceasar would be the head of the gens/clan.
+Hashbrown Inc. Ha! You'll notice that my videos were uploaded (starting in 2011) before Hamilton opened (2015). It seems Lin Manuel and I have the same taste in standard GarageBand loops.
