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Roman Name Tutorial

A Roman name has four parts:

Marcus Vipsanius, son of Lucius, Agrippa
The Praenomen or first name
The first born son usually has the same prae- nomen as his father.
The Nomen or family name
This is the part of the name that shows the person's ancestry. In addition, each family has a number of sub- groupings reflected in the praenomen.
Filiation and Tribal Affiliation
This is the part that shows what the person's father was named. Here, we can see that he would have been named Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa. Sometimes, the tribe (a grouping that is only used for Roman Citizens) that the person belongs to is added. For example, "Of the Tribe of Aemilia"
The Cognomen or Family Name
This part of the name shows what sub-group of the family this person belongs to. Some times they are descriptive words like "Felix" because the first person to have this praenomen was lucky.

If a person is a slave, this will be reflected in the filiation and by the absence of a nomen. There is also specific mention of the fact that he is someone's slave:

Musicus, Slave of Tiberius Caesar Augustus, Scurranus
Romanized foreign name.
Filiation reflecting the servile status of the person.
In this case the filiation reflects the Roman belief that a slave did not have an existence that was independent of his or her master.
Romanized Foreign Name.

If a person is a freed slave, this will show up in the filiation as: Titus Flavius, freedman of Augustus, Ganymedes

Titus Flavius, Freedman of Augustus, Ganymedes
Praenomen
Nomen
Filiation Showing whose Former Slave he is
Romanized Foreign Name kept as the Cognomen
These two parts of the person's name are taken from the praenomen and cognomen of the person who freed the person. In this case, the person who freed Ganymedes was the emperor Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus). We can use this kind of name to give a date to the Inscription. If we know that Vespasian as Augustus freed Ganymedes, then he must have done it between 69 and 79 A.D. when Vespasian was emperor and so the inscription dates to sometime after Ganymedes was freed. Watch out for people who are children of freedmen but use their father's name (derived from the person who freed them). Foreign names like Ganymedes and praenomen and nomen that match an emperor can be used to find families that were descended from freedmen. This is another case where the filiation reflects the Roman belief that a slave did not have an existence that was independent of his or her master.