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Latin Names

Note on Men's Names

Roman men had three names. The first name, the gens (or family) name, and the surname. The gens name comes from the person's clan or family, such as the Julii or Cornelii clans. Surnames were often a sort of nickname to begin with, such as Cicero (``chickpea'').

Some sample full Roman male names (with their commonly known name following) include Gaius Julius Caesar (Caesar), Marcus Tullius Cicero (Cicero), Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline), Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil), and Marcus Licinius Crassus (Crassus).

For post-Roman Europeans, it is common practice among scholars to Latinize ones name by adding an ``-ius'' to the end of the name. (Women would add ``-ia'' instead.)

Note on Women's Names

The easiest way to make a name for a Latin female character is to add an ``-a'' to a male name. Almost all (Roman) Latin female names are derived from male names, such as Octavia (from Octavius) or Claudia (from Claudius).

Note that in Roman times, women were only called by the feminine form of their family's gens name, and were not specifically named as such. Cornelia, for example, would be from the Cornelii family. As such, several of the names presented below are Latinate, but not Roman, names.

Women's Names

Men's Names

Gens Names

Further Reading

If you can find it, the following book has been strongly recommended. It includes over 14,000 names from classical sources, which would be useful for naming magi.
Lempriere's Classical Dictionary of Proper Names Mentioned in Ancient Author's Writ Large, by John Lempriere, F. A. Wright, J. Lampriere, and F. A. Adams. The title is out of print, but the most recent printing was in 1994 from Bracken Books of London.

Return to names index
Copyright 1997--2000 by John J. Kasab -- kasab@cae.wisc.edu
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