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When applying for citizenship, only the praenomen, nomen gentile, and cognomen are mandatory, while additional elements such as agnomen and filiation are optional.
This form of "first" name, except for familiar or friendly use, was relatively unimportant, and was not frequently used on its own. There are only a relative few praenomina that were commonly known in both the Republican and Imperial eras of Rome. Only a couple of the names, such as Marcus (as Mark) and Lucius (and its feminine form Lucia) survived into modern times.
Many of the praenomina used by male citizens were abbreviated to one or two characters in writing or inscriptions; the more common abbreviations include: Appius (Ap.), Flavius (Fl.), Gaius (C.), Gnaeus (Cn.), Lucius (L), Manius (M'), Marcus (M), Publius (P), Servius (Ser.), Sextus (Sex.), Spurius (Sp.), Titus (T), Tiberius (Ti.). The names Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quintus, Sextus, Septimus, Octavius, and Decimus mean, respectively, 'first', 'second', 'third', 'fifth', 'sixth', 'seventh', 'eighth', and 'tenth', and were originally given to second, third, etc. sons in birth order. There are, however, abundant examples of this birth-number significance being later lost: Sextus Pompeius, for instance, was not a sixth son. A possible explanation for this is that the numerical praenomen came instead to stand for the number of the month in which the person was born.
The second name or nomen gentile is the name of the Gens (family, clan), in masculine form for men.
Well-known nomina include many of the familiar names of ancient Rome, such Claudius, Cornelius, Domitius , and Valerius. See list of Roman nomina for a comprehensive list.
The third name, or cognomen, started to be a nickname or personal name that distinguished individuals within the same Gens (the cognomen does not appear in official documents until around 100 BC). During the Roman Republic and Empire, the cognomen is inherited from father to son, serving to distinguish a family within a Gens. Often the cognomen was chosen based on some physical or personality trait.
Hundreds of cognomina are known. See list of Roman cognomina for a comprehensive list.
A distinction could even be made in families, a second cognomen (called agnomen) being added. A few of these were inherited like the cognomen, thus establishing a sub-family within a family. Nevertheless, the majority were used as nicknames. Sometimes it served an honorific purpose as the result of an important deed.