An agnomen (; : agnomina), in the Roman naming convention, was a nickname, just as the cognomen had been initially. However, the cognomina eventually became family names, and so agnomina were needed to distinguish between similarly-named persons. However, as the agnomen was an additional and optional component in a Roman name, not all Romans had an agnomen.
Pseudo-Probus uses the hero of the Punic Wars, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, as an example:
Marius Victorinus further elucidates:
Africanus, Creticus and the likes are also known as . For example, Gaius Marcius Coriolanus earned his from the capture of Corioli.
Etymology
Latin agnōmen (also spelled adnomen) comes from
ad "to" and
nōmen "name".
Caligula
As a minimum, a Roman
agnomen is a name attached to an individual's full titulature after birth and formal naming by the family. True Roman nicknames, fully replacing the individual's name in usage, are rare. One such example in which the nickname fully replaced the individual's name in usage was the Emperor
Caligula; that name was used in place of and not along with his full name, which was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Caligula's
praenomen was Gaius, his
nomen Julius, his
cognomen Caesar. Some
agnomina were inherited like
cognomina and thus established a sub-family. Caligula's
agnomen came from the
caligae that he wore as part of his miniature soldier's uniform while accompanying his father,
Germanicus, on campaigns in northern
Germania. In turn, Germanicus received his agnomen in 9 BC, when it was posthumously awarded to his father Nero Claudius Drusus in honour of his Germanic victories. At birth, Germanicus had been known as either Nero Claudius Drusus, after his father, or
Tiberius, after his uncle. As with Caligula, Germanicus is mostly referred to by his agnomen.
Comparison with pseudonyms
An
agnomen is not a
pseudonym but a real name and is an addition to, not a substitution for, an individual's full name. Parallel examples of
agnomina from later times are
like Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson, who is, however, known more often by his agnomen than by his first name, or popular nicknames like
Mike Tyson or
Dwayne Johnson.
See also
