Cognomen

The name derived from Julius Caesar 's cognomen "Caesar": this cognomen was adopted by all Roman emperors, exclusively by the ruling monarch after the Julio-Claudian dynasty had died out.

This class included two main types of cognomen: the cognomen ex virtute, and cognomina that were derived from nomina, to indicate the parentage of Romans who had been adopted from one gens into another.

Henceforth it would no longer be referred to as an epidemic (as if that was not sufficiently frightening) but by the fiercely awful cognomen – Pandemic.

As a result, by the third century the cognomen became the most important element of the Roman name, and frequently the only one that was useful for distinguishing between individuals.

Because of his bellicose nature, Albert during his lifetime was given the cognomen Bellator ("the Warlike").

Both inscriptions are from Roman Spain, and are also notable for the doubled nomen and for the cognomen Secunda, which in this case is really a praenomen placed after the filiation, a common practice in Roman women's names of this period.

But as Roman institutions vanished, and the distinction between nomen and cognomen ceased to have any practical importance, so the complex system of cognomina that developed under the later empire faded away.

But no ancient source accords him or his father the Dives cognomen, while we are explicitly informed that his great wealth was acquired rather than inherited, and that he was raised in modest circumstances.

Decline and fall Otho He accepted, or appeared to accept, the cognomen of Nero conferred upon him by the shouts of the populace, whom his comparative youth and the effeminacy of his appearance reminded of their lost favourite.

Depending on whether Pliny meant that Agrippa was aged 50 or 51 at his death, this gives a date of birth between March 64 and March 62. His family cognomen was the Latin form of Greek Agrippas, meaning "wild horse".

Even then, not all Roman citizens bore cognomina, and until the end of the Republic the cognomen was regarded as somewhat less than an official name.

He became a renowned pirate, his cognomen derived from his thick black beard and fearsome appearance; he was reported to have tied lit fuses under his hat to frighten his enemies.

He is commonly known as Tarquin the Proud, from his cognomen Superbus ( Latin for "proud, arrogant, lofty").

His cognomen "Sakkas" has been interpreted to indicate that he was a porter in his youth.

However, there is debate as to whether the cognomen Barca (meaning "thunderbolt") was applied to Hamilcar alone or was hereditary within his family.

In addition the Dives cognomen of the Crassi Divites means rich or wealthy, and since Marcus Crassus the subject here was renowned for his enormous wealth this has contributed to hasty assumptions that his family belonged to the Divites.

In light of Hamilcar Barca's cognomen, historians refer to Hamilcar's family as the Barcids.

In order to do so, he dropped the cognomen "Nero" which he had adopted as paterfamilias of the Claudii Nerones when his brother Germanicus was adopted out.

In subsequent generations, all reigning emperors assumed Imperator as an additional praenomen (usually without foregoing their original praenomina), and Augustus as a cognomen.

Ironically, the most famous examples of this class of cognomen come from the period of the Republic, centuries before the concept of the agnomen was formulated.