Any time you get into onomastics, you've got my attention. Your discussion of Roman naming practice calls to mind Withycombe's comment: Imagine a Roman patrician nursery where all the boys had the same name and the girls had none at all.
Boys' praenoms were very limited as well. Most of them were called Gaius, Marcus, Antonius, Lucius and so on. They were remarkably unimaginative with male names.
Do you know of evidence of children and women's individual cognomina in patrician households? We have the example of Caligula, of course, but that's such a special case that it's hard to generalize. It is very foreign to our notion of individual identity that there might have been no way to distinguish the children of a household. Or was their notion of identity for children and women really that since they had no public presence, they need not be distinguished?
Informal nicknames like Caligula are called 'signa' and they could be applied to girls as well as boys - Cicero called his daughter Tullia 'Tulliola', for example, a diminutive form.
Then you have 'agnomina', which are additional honorifics added to a name, such as 'Germanicus'. Emperors could have all sorts of agnomina added to their names to signify important events, and it's possible to date inscriptions by the honorific they have at that point.
As I have recently found out during my translation of Suetonius, it's very easy to get yourself confused between people with the same name, especially when families would 'recycle' names to replace children who died in infancy. Then you have to add the problem of ancient writers referring to such children by names that only they would use for them, or via naming conventions that aren't explained anywhere else. Titus had two daughters, one of whom was called Julia Flavia and the other had an uncertain name, but is sometimes also called Julia or just Flavia, or nothing at all. What he called them isn't recorded anywhere.
There are almost three different layers of names. Informal and familial names that are often not recorded at all; the names, both formal and informal, by which ancient writers referred to people; and how modern writers refer to them.
Almost nobody would have called Caligula by that name during his reign, for example. He was always referred to as Gaius. Similarly, when ancient writers refer to 'Caesar', they are normally talking about Augustus and the man we call Caesar was, again, referred to generally as Gaius. Someone once 'insulted' Vespasian by calling him 'Vespasian', his personal name, rather than 'Caesar'. 'Caesar' by this point was less an actual name and more a title. The last actual 'Caesar' was Nero.
It's important to remember that ancient writers are usually speaking to an audience that understood the identity of the people in their narratives in a different way than we do today.
Sure, I was using Caligula just as an example of a well-known child's nickname.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were a common pattern of signa (thanks, not a term I've encountered before) for children, used almost exclusively within the family. I was wondering what evidence exists. And the answer seems to be not much.
I bet he didn't want anyone calling that by the time he was a tween, even the soldiers who gave him that nickname. "Bootsie" doesn't really say "Augustus' descendent".
It’s a question that has puzzled me since my schooldays, when I read in Shakespeare how Caesar had been ‘ripped untimely from his mother’s womb’, and wondered just how that could have happened.
I hadn't realized that by the time of Gaius Julius' life or not long after, even the Romans had no idea where the cognomen came from and meant! I wonder if some ancestor cut something really awesome open or down. "Oi! Which Julius is he?" "The one what chopped that giant tree!"
I ruled out the hair explanation since we all know about his lack thereof starting pretty young. Of course that trait could be from his mother's side and all the previous ones had luscious locks.
Any time you get into onomastics, you've got my attention. Your discussion of Roman naming practice calls to mind Withycombe's comment: Imagine a Roman patrician nursery where all the boys had the same name and the girls had none at all.
Boys' praenoms were very limited as well. Most of them were called Gaius, Marcus, Antonius, Lucius and so on. They were remarkably unimaginative with male names.
Do you know of evidence of children and women's individual cognomina in patrician households? We have the example of Caligula, of course, but that's such a special case that it's hard to generalize. It is very foreign to our notion of individual identity that there might have been no way to distinguish the children of a household. Or was their notion of identity for children and women really that since they had no public presence, they need not be distinguished?
Informal nicknames like Caligula are called 'signa' and they could be applied to girls as well as boys - Cicero called his daughter Tullia 'Tulliola', for example, a diminutive form.
Then you have 'agnomina', which are additional honorifics added to a name, such as 'Germanicus'. Emperors could have all sorts of agnomina added to their names to signify important events, and it's possible to date inscriptions by the honorific they have at that point.
As I have recently found out during my translation of Suetonius, it's very easy to get yourself confused between people with the same name, especially when families would 'recycle' names to replace children who died in infancy. Then you have to add the problem of ancient writers referring to such children by names that only they would use for them, or via naming conventions that aren't explained anywhere else. Titus had two daughters, one of whom was called Julia Flavia and the other had an uncertain name, but is sometimes also called Julia or just Flavia, or nothing at all. What he called them isn't recorded anywhere.
There are almost three different layers of names. Informal and familial names that are often not recorded at all; the names, both formal and informal, by which ancient writers referred to people; and how modern writers refer to them.
Almost nobody would have called Caligula by that name during his reign, for example. He was always referred to as Gaius. Similarly, when ancient writers refer to 'Caesar', they are normally talking about Augustus and the man we call Caesar was, again, referred to generally as Gaius. Someone once 'insulted' Vespasian by calling him 'Vespasian', his personal name, rather than 'Caesar'. 'Caesar' by this point was less an actual name and more a title. The last actual 'Caesar' was Nero.
It's important to remember that ancient writers are usually speaking to an audience that understood the identity of the people in their narratives in a different way than we do today.
All this is of great confusion to historians both ancient and modern.
I suspect the girls all got nicknames in the family. At least Major/Minor or numbers. Otherwise, it would have been such a faff.
If you'd called Caligula that to his face, it would have been your last mistake,
Sure, I was using Caligula just as an example of a well-known child's nickname.
I wouldn't be surprised if there were a common pattern of signa (thanks, not a term I've encountered before) for children, used almost exclusively within the family. I was wondering what evidence exists. And the answer seems to be not much.
Thanks.
I bet he didn't want anyone calling that by the time he was a tween, even the soldiers who gave him that nickname. "Bootsie" doesn't really say "Augustus' descendent".
Thank you for this.
It’s a question that has puzzled me since my schooldays, when I read in Shakespeare how Caesar had been ‘ripped untimely from his mother’s womb’, and wondered just how that could have happened.
She lived for longer than he did in the end!
I hadn't realized that by the time of Gaius Julius' life or not long after, even the Romans had no idea where the cognomen came from and meant! I wonder if some ancestor cut something really awesome open or down. "Oi! Which Julius is he?" "The one what chopped that giant tree!"
I ruled out the hair explanation since we all know about his lack thereof starting pretty young. Of course that trait could be from his mother's side and all the previous ones had luscious locks.