Roman Empire Name Generator

Names in the Roman Empire tell you a person's rank, origin, and often the emperor who granted their family citizenship. Emperors themselves adopted a formal style: Imperator Caesar, then their own names, then Augustus, so Trajan was officially Imperator Caesar Nerva Traianus Augustus. Provincials who gained citizenship took the praenomen and nomen of their patron emperor and kept a native or Latin cognomen, which is why the empire filled up with men called Tiberius Claudius, Titus Flavius, Marcus Ulpius, and Publius Aelius, and why by the fourth century almost every official was a Flavius or an Aurelius (after Caracalla's edict of 212 gave citizenship to all free men, and Constantine's dynasty made Flavius nearly a title).

Legionaries left their names on thousands of tombstones and discharge diplomas: Gaius Valerius Crispus, Marcus Favonius Facilis, Titus Calidius Severus. Freedmen took their former master's names (Tiberius Claudius Narcissus, Marcus Antonius Pallas), and Greek, Syrian, Gallic, and Punic families appear under Roman names with a foreign cognomen attached: Herodes Atticus, Septimia Zenobia, Julius Civilis, Aurelius Augustinus.

The list covers emperors, empresses, generals, jurists, soldiers, freedmen, and provincial rebels from Augustus to Justinian, so you can name anyone from a Rhine centurion to the last Western emperor.