Roman Name Generator

Roman names follow a system that is easy to learn and instantly recognizable. A citizen man carried the tria nomina: a praenomen (personal name) from a pool of only about a dozen, a nomen (clan or gens name ending in -ius), and a cognomen (family branch name). Marcus Tullius Cicero is Marcus of the gens Tullia, of the branch nicknamed Cicero. Praenomina were so few that Romans abbreviated them (C. for Gaius, L. for Lucius, M. for Marcus) and referred to each other by nomen or cognomen, which is why we say Caesar and Cicero rather than Gaius and Marcus.

Roman women were named for their clan: Julius Caesar's daughter was Julia, Cicero's was Tullia, and Scipio's was Cornelia. Two sisters might be Antonia Maior and Antonia Minor, or Junia Prima, Secunda, and Tertia. By the imperial period women commonly bore a second name from their father's cognomen or their mother's family: Livia Drusilla, Vipsania Agrippina, Poppaea Sabina, Julia Domna.

The list ranges from the legendary early Republic (Lucretia, Horatius Cocles) through the great orators and poets to the last Western emperors, and it works equally well for a historical novel, a Latin class, a legionary in a game, or a strong classical name for a baby.