Cognomina in a sentence

But individual cognomina could also be used to distinguish between members of the same family; even as siblings came to share the same praenomen, they bore different cognomina, some from the paternal line, and others from their maternal ancestors.

In the later empire, the proliferation of cognomina was such that the full nomenclature of most individuals was not recorded, and in many cases the only names surviving in extant records are cognomina.

Many cognomina had unusual terminations for Latin names, ending in -a, -o, or -io, and their meanings were frequently obscure, even in antiquity; this seems to emphasize the manner in which many cognomina originally arose from nicknames.

One class of cognomina consisted largely of archaic praenomina that were seldom used by the later Republic, although as cognomina these names persisted throughout Imperial times.

Although these names had existed throughout Roman history, it was only in this late period that they were distinguished from other cognomina.

As a result, the cognomina adopted by these citizens, often including their original non-Latin names, became the most important part of their nomenclature.

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 many such individuals retained a portion of their original names, usually in the form of cognomina.

By the sixth century, traditional Roman cognomina were frequently prefixed by a series of names with Christian religious significance.

Cognomina are known from the beginning of the Republic, but were long regarded as informal names, and omitted from most official records before the second century BC.

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.

However, it was also common to identify sisters using a variety of names, some of which could be used as either praenomina or cognomina.

In the later empire, members of the Roman aristocracy used several different schemes of assuming and inheriting nomina and cognomina, both to signify their rank, and to indicate their family and social connections.

New cognomina were coined and came into fashion throughout Roman history.

Other cognomina commemorated important events associated with a person; a battle in which a man had fought ( Regillensis ), a town captured ( Coriolanus ); or a miraculous occurrence ( Corvus ).

Praenomina could still be given when necessary, and as with men's praenomina the practice survived well into imperial times, but the proliferation of personal cognomina eventually rendered women's praenomina obsolete.

The name of the tribe normally follows the filiation and precedes any cognomina, suggesting that it occurred before the cognomen was recognized as a formal part of the Roman name; so probably no later than the second century BC.

The people of the western empire reverted to single names, which were indistinguishable from the cognomina that they replaced; many former praenomina and nomina also survived in this way.

The question of how to classify different cognomina led the grammarians of the fourth and fifth centuries to designate some of them as agnomina.

They did not disappear entirely, nor were Roman women bereft of personal names; but for most of Roman history women were known chiefly by their nomina or cognomina.