Names.

[Gaius Octavius]

Some may find this interesting.

 

http://www.novaroma.org/nr/Choosing_a_Roman_name

[Nephele]

A nifty site on Roman nomenclature. However, I suspect that the "Apollonius" which appears on Nova Roma's accepted "List of Nomina" is a contrivance to accommodate members of their micronation (the so-called "modern Apollonii") who had chosen that nomen gentilicium for themselves before the Nova Roma folks decided to limit these choices to actual nomina gentilicia. "Apollonius" makes a far more credible cognomen than it does a nomen gentilicium, and Iiro Kajanto, in his The Latin Cognomina, notes several similar cognomina: Apollonios, Apollinaris, Apollinarius, Apollinius, and Apollodoros. (I'd also be interested to know where they got the "Moravius" from.)

 

-- Nephele

[Ingsoc]

It's seem that in later times the range of names to be chosen was much wider. for example in this letter by Apion, a Greek who join the Roman navy, he mention that his Roman name is Antonius Maximus.

[Nephele]

It's seem that in later times the range of names to be chosen was much wider. for example in this letter by Apion, a Greek who join the Roman navy, he mention that his Roman name is Antonius Maximus.

 

Yes, Roman naming customs changed over time. But regarding that first letter at your link, from a second century CE recruit named "Apollinarius to Taesis, his mother and lady..." The recruit was in all likelihood referring to himself by his cognomen -- which, if he were a freedman, may even have been a Latinized form of his original, given name, before assuming Roman citizenship and a Roman patron's nomen gentilicium of his own.

 

As also in the case of the second letter by "Apion" (a Graeco-Egyptian soldier serving in the Roman navy) who calls himself "Antonius Maximus", writing to his father, Epimachus. A Roman citizen named "Antonius Maximus" was in all likelihood the patron of Apion, who gave his Roman name to Apion. Or, it may have been that Apion's Roman military commander had bestowed the more Roman-sounding name upon him.

 

-- Nephele