[antir-heralds] Name Check: Lucia Magnus

[chrisact at qwickconnect.net]

Ursula Whitcher wrote:
{Mike Bartlett <tyger at sasktel.net> wrote)
>>I have a client who wishes to use the name Lucia Magnus.  My client wishes
>>to be 450A.D. Roman.  I have found references for Lucius on the Academy of
>>St. Gabriel and the feminine form for Lucia, but I haven't been able to find
>>any date references for the name.  Magnus is to be her cognomen or last
>>name.  I haven't been able to find any references for this name.
> 
> 
> For a feminine name, she'd want the feminine form of the cognomen: <Lucia 
> Magna>.
> 
> Academy of Saint Gabriel Report 2842 ( http://www.s-gabriel.org/2842
>   ) says:
> 
> In the early Roman Empire, most citizens used a tria nomina or triple 
> name,
> which consisted of a praenomen (given name), nomen (gens or clan name), 
> and
> cognomen (originally a personal nickname, but later inherited within a
> branch of a gens).  By the third century, this style of naming had fallen
> out of fashion.  The praenomen disappeared from use, and two-element names
> became the norm.  By the fourth century, 90% of men and women in the 
> Empire
> were identified by a single name (derived from a cognomen); by the fifth
> century that number had risen to 95%.  The remainder used a nomen plus
> cognomen, or, in a few cases, a single name plus a patronymic byname.
> 
> Your client does need a two-element name for the purposes of registration; 
> however, you should probably let her know that unless she was a member of 
> the highest aristocracy, she would probably have used just one name.
> 
> The report cited above discusses <Lucius> and <Lucianus> in Roman Britain, 
> though it doesn't give exact dates.  Both <Lucius> and <Magnus> are found 
> in Maredudd's article on Roman names on the Laurel website:
> 
> http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/roman/
> 
> That's enough to establish the elements as reasonable in our period.  This 
> article is not a reliable guide to name structure, especially for a very 
> late imperial name like the one your client wants (and it 
> consistently fails to use either English or Latin plurals for terms such 
> as nomen or cognomen), but since it's on the Laurel website, you don't 
> need to make photocopies.

The only problem I can see is with Lucius-as-nomen. The Laurel site 
(http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/roman/names.html) only list Lucius as 
a praenomen, which agrees with my (scanty) reading anent Republic/early Imperial 
Rome. (I hasten to admit I know very, very little about the time-period in 
question.) BTW, both Lucius Licinius Lucullus and Lucius Æmilius Paulus are 
examples of Lucius as a praenomen.

In that case, in the Republic, no daughter of Lucius ____ _____ would be "Lucia"

As pointed out in http://www.vroma.org/~bmcmanus/roman_names.html, by the late 
Republic, women's names were changing somewhat, but in no case was the father's 
praenomen used. The above-referenced St. Gabriel report, referring to even later 
times, makes clear the praenomina were pretty much gone, which I would expect 
means Lucius (and hence Lucia) were gone, too.

Of course, I might be mistaken, but my inclination would be to ask for 
documentation that Lucia, or at least Lucius, was still in use as late as 450 CE.


~~Basil Dragonstrike

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