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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Yaarel" data-source="post: 7370912" data-attributes="member: 58172">Even among the Romans, the use of a family name mostly fell out of use by the Medieval Era. The family name is moreso a ‘clan name’.For comparison, many Europeans today have three names.• personal name (first name)• distinguishing name (middle name)• clan name (last name)But there are many variants. Some people prefer to use their middle name as their personal name. Some people include the clan names of both the father and the mother. Wives conventionally take on the clan name of their husband, but sometimes keep their own clan name, or include both of them. Some people add a sacred personal name. Some people add a nickname, sometimes in quotes. Some people add extra names in honor of a loved one or a sacred person. Or so on. Even so, todays three name system is typical enough.Since before history, not later than the 600s BCE, Romans continued the then unusual custom of a personal name plus a clan name.• personal name (praenomen)• clan name (nomen)There were many variants. After the two name system, individuals might add other names such as the equivalents of ‘son/daughter of father/mother’, or a nickname, a tribal name, or one or more distinguishing names.Starting with the aristocratic families, by the 100s BCE, most Romans had three names.• personal name (praenomen)• clan name (nomen)• distinguishing name (cognomen)However, by the 00s CE, the cognomen increasingly functioned as the personal name. Therefore the praenomen became the distinguishing name. This earlier praenomen became a formality, and the choices for it formalized, narrowed, often abbreviated, if there was any praenomen at all. By the 400s CE, only the most traditionalist aristocratic clans preserved a praenomen.• clan name (nomen)• personal name (cognomen)Interestingly, women were often politely referred to by their clan name, the nomen, calling attention to the significance of the family that she was born into and that she represented.By the 600s, the custom of a clan name, a nomen, fell out of use. The extension of Roman citizenship to Nonromans in the 200s required the new citizens to gain a clan name, and many chose the clan name of the emperor that gave them citizenship: Caracalla of the clan ‘Aurelius’. But other imperial clans came into use too such as ‘Flavius’ (≈ Vespasian). Influential families often innovated their own clan names. Aristocratic families customarily conferred nobility to others by formally adopting them into their clan. Towards the end, the nomen came to serve more as title of status, rather than an actual clan name. Finally, the clan name fell out of use entirely.In the Medieval Period, Romans normally had a personal name only.• personal name (cognomen)</blockquote>

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