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The ''praenomen'' (; plural: praenomina) was a personal name chosen by the parents of a Roman child. It was first bestowed on the ''dies lustricus'' (day of lustration), the eighth day after the birth of a girl, or the ninth day after the birth of a boy. The praenomen would then be formally conferred a second time when girls married, or when boys assumed the ''toga virilis'' upon reaching manhood. Although it was the oldest of the ''tria nomina'' commonly used in Roman naming conventions, by the late republic, most ''praenomina'' were so common that most people were called by their praenomina only by family or close friends. For this reason, although they continued to be used, praenomina gradually disappeared from public records during imperial times. Although both men and women received praenomina, women's praenomina were frequently ignored, and they were gradually abandoned by many Roman families, though they continued to be used in some families and in the countryside. ==Background== The ''tria nomina'', consisting of ''praenomen'', ''nomen'' and ''cognomen'', which are today regarded as a distinguishing feature of Roman culture, first developed and spread throughout Italy in pre-Roman times. Most of the people of Italy spoke languages belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family; the three major groups within the Italian Peninsula were the Latin branch, including the tribes of the Latini (Latins), who formed the core of the early Roman populace, and their neighbors, the Falisci and Hernici; and the Sabellian branch, including the Sabines, who also contributed to early Roman culture, as well as the Samnites, Umbrian culture of the Padus (Po) Valley, the rustic Picentes of the Adriatic coast, and the Volsci, neighbors of the early Romans, and many other peoples of central and southern Italy. In addition to the Italic peoples were the Etruscans, whose language was unrelated to Indo-European, but who exerted a strong cultural influence throughout much of Italy, including early Rome.〔''Oxford Classical Dictionary'', 2nd Ed. (1970)〕 The Italic nomenclature system cannot clearly be attributed to any one of these cultures, but seems to have developed simultaneously amongst each of them, perhaps due to constant contact between them. It first appears in urban centers and thence gradually spread to the countryside. In the earliest period, each person was known by a single name, or ''nomen''. These nomina were ''monothematic''; that is, they expressed a single concept or idea. As populations grew, many individuals might be known by the same name. Unlike the other cultures of Europe, which dealt with this problem by adopting ''dithematic'' names (names expressing two ideas), the peoples of Italy developed the first true surnames, or ''cognomina''.〔''Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft''〕 At first these were generally personal names, and might refer to any number of things, including a person's occupation, town of origin, the name of his or her father, or some physical feature or characteristic. But gradually an increasing number of them became hereditary, until they could be used to distinguish whole families from one generation to another. As this happened, the word ''nomen'' came to be applied to these surnames, and the original personal name came to be called the ''praenomen'', or ''forename'', as it was usually recited first. ''Cognomen'' came to refer to any other personal or hereditary surnames coming after the family name, and used to distinguish individuals or branches of large families from one another.〔〔William Smith, ''A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities''〕〔George Davis Chase, "The Origin of Roman Praenomina", in ''Harvard Studies in Classical Philology'', vol. VIII (1897) (Full text ) in Archive.org 〕 As the ''tria nomina'' developed throughout Italy, the importance of the praenomen in everyday life declined considerably, together with the number of praenomina in common use. By the 1st century they were occasionally omitted from public records, and by the middle of the 4th century they were seldom recorded. As the Roman Empire expanded, much of the populace came from cultures with different naming conventions, and the formal structure of the ''tria nomina'' became neglected. Various names that were originally nomina or cognomina came to be treated as praenomina, and some individuals used several of them at once. However, some vestiges of the original system survived, and many of the original praenomina have continued into modern times.〔〔''Dictionary of Greek & Roman Biography & Mythology''〕〔T. R. S. Broughton, ''Magistrates of the Roman Republic'' (1952)〕 Most common praenomina were regularly abbreviated in writing (in speech the full name would always be used). Although some names could be abbreviated multiple ways, the following tables include only the most usual abbreviation, if any, for each name. These abbreviations continue to be used by classical scholars. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「praenomen」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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