Originally Posted by Franconicus
Very interesting!!
This is what I found:
The male Roman had three names:
praenomina (kind of Christian name)
There were only 19 different available. Some of them were only used by one family. From the 5th son they took the number (Quintus = 5th, Sixtus...)
nomen gentile (this is the name of his father's family)
cognomina (this name is individual, too, due to some properties of the child)
Later, the cognomia stood for the stirps.
Sometimes there were agnomen; Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (=the winner in Africa)