Latin boy names
Most Latin names are not words for qualities. They are clan labels, place tags and old family nicknames — Julian belongs to the Julii, Adrian comes from a town on the Adriatic, Cassius was somebody's surname before it was anybody's first name. Once you know the Roman three-name system, the whole set stops looking arbitrary. Thirty-four of them, with the Roman machinery explained below.
Latin names in the U.S. top 100
Latin's showing in the current list is the strongest of any classical language, and it arrives by three routes at once: straight from Rome, through Spanish and Italian, and through the medieval English church.
- #10LucasLOO-kusLatin
Man from Lucania, a region in the arch of Italy's boot. Popularly associated with lux, light, though the connection is not etymological.
- #14LucaLOO-kahItalian
The Italian form of the same name, and in Italy one of the standard boys' names of the last fifty years.
- #16Sebastianse-BAS-chunLatin
Venerable, revered; formally, "the man from Sebaste". The arrow-shot saint made it a Christian name.
- #19LeoLEE-ohLatin
Lion — the Latin word itself, used unaltered. Thirteen popes have taken it.
- #25JulianJOO-lee-unLatin
Belonging to Julius; a member of the Julii, the clan that claimed descent from Aeneas and produced Caesar.
- #40BennettBEN-itEnglish
Blessed. Latin Benedictus, ground down by medieval English mouths into two syllables.
- #42RomanROH-munLatin
Of Rome; a Roman. Not a Roman name at all in Rome's day, but a Christian one from the fourth century on.
- #46AnthonyAN-thuh-neeLatin
Of the Antonius family. The clan's own sense is unrecorded, probably because it was Etruscan and Rome forgot.
- #74AdrianAY-dree-unLatin
From Hadria, the town that named the Adriatic and, through it, the emperor Hadrian.
- #81AugustAW-gustLatin
Venerable, majestic, consecrated. Awarded to Octavian by the Senate as a title in 27 BC, and a name ever after.
- #94Emilianoeh-mee-lee-AH-noSpanish
Of the Aemilius clan, whose name is traditionally linked to aemulus, rival.
- #96ChristianKRIS-chunLatin
Follower of Christ. Latin grammar applied to a Greek title — christianus, formed exactly like Roman clan adjectives.
Traditional Latin names
The durable core: clan names, martyrs' names and a handful of plain Latin adjectives that early Christians liked because they were lucky words with no god inside them.
- MarcusMAR-kusLatin
Of Mars. One of the commonest Roman first names, abbreviated to a bare M. in inscriptions.
- MartinMAR-tinLatin
Of Mars; warlike. It survived Christianity only because of St Martin of Tours, who halved his cloak for a beggar.
- FelixFEE-liksLatin
Fortunate, lucky, happy. Sulla took it as a cognomen to advertise the favour of the gods; four popes took it later.
- VictorVIK-turLatin
Conqueror, winner. An early Christian favourite, read as victory over death rather than over an army.
- VincentVIN-sentLatin
Conquering, prevailing — a present participle doing duty as a name.
- PaulPAWLLatin
Small, little, humble. A Roman cognomen; the apostle's Roman name, carried alongside his Hebrew one.
- MagnusMAG-nusLatin
Great. Pompey's honorific, later mistaken for a first name in the north and worn by a line of Norse kings.
- Aureliusaw-REE-lee-usLatin
Golden. A clan name, and the one the emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius is remembered by.
- LawrenceLAWR-entsLatin
Man from Laurentum. The link to laurel came later, by association with the town's name.
- DominicDOM-i-nikLatin
Of the Lord. Traditionally given to a child born on a Sunday — dies dominica, the Lord's day.
- BenedictBEN-uh-diktLatin
Blessed; literally, well spoken of. The father of Western monasticism, and the full form behind Bennett.
- ValentineVAL-un-tyneLatin
Strong, healthy, vigorous, from valere. The romantic freight is fifteen centuries younger than the name.
Clan names and numerals: the Roman system at work
Every name below is a piece of Roman naming machinery rather than a compliment. Some are praenomina, some are clan names, some are cognomina, and three are simply numbers.
- TitusTY-tusLatin
A praenomen with no recoverable sense — one of the small handful of first names Romans actually used.
- CassiusKASH-usLatin
A nomen: the clan name of the Cassii, traditionally glossed as hollow or vain.
- AtticusAT-i-kusLatin
A cognomen meaning "the man from Attica" — earned by Cicero's friend Titus Pomponius for his long residence in Athens.
- FabianFAY-bee-unLatin
Of the Fabius clan, traditionally read as bean grower. Roman clans were often named for crops.
- SergioSEHR-hyohItalian
From Sergius, a patrician clan name of uncertain and probably Etruscan origin.
- VirgilVUR-jilLatin
From Vergilius, another clan name nobody can translate. The poet made it worth carrying.
- Ignatiusig-NAY-shusLatin
A family name of probable Etruscan origin, later reshaped by Latin speakers to look like ignis, fire.
- Octaviook-TAH-vee-ohSpanish
Eighth. From the gens Octavia — the family Rome's first emperor was born into.
- QuentinKWEN-tinFrench
Fifth. Built on Quintus, the numeral praenomen given to a fifth child, and carried into French by a martyr.
- QuincyKWIN-seeEnglish
The estate of Quintius — the same numeral again, arriving in English as a Norman place name.
How Latin naming works
A Roman citizen carried three names, and only the middle one was really his. The praenomen came from a pool so small — Marcus, Lucius, Gaius, Publius, Titus and about a dozen others in general use — that inscriptions abbreviate it to a single letter and expect you to fill in the rest. The nomen named the gens, the clan: Julius, Cornelius, Aemilius, Fabius. The cognomen began as a personal nickname and then hardened into a branch of the family, which is why so many of them are unflattering; Cicero is a chickpea, Naso is a nose. When a family ran out of the usable praenomina it simply counted, and the numbers stuck as names in their own right: Quintus for a fifth child, Sextus for a sixth, Decimus for a tenth, and the gens Octavia carrying the eighth in its title.
Almost none of this reached English as Roman. It reached English through the church, which kept Latin alive for a thousand years after Rome stopped speaking it, and which filtered the stock twice over. Clan names survived where a martyr or a pope happened to bear one, which is the only reason Sergio, Fabian and Lawrence are still on birth certificates. Plain Latin adjectives were adopted precisely because they were auspicious and contained no pagan god: Felix the lucky, Victor the winner, Beatus the blessed. Martin, built openly on Mars, is the great exception, and it got through on a saint's coat-tails. What English finally inherited is a Roman name stock strained through Christianity and then through Norman French, which is why Lawrence looks nothing like Laurentius. The Spanish and Italian pages under names by origin show the same stock that never went through that second strainer.