Question about roman names

**Moonfog** · 02-10-2007, 13:33

Hi all,

first up i'd like to thank the EB-team for their efforts to bring us this great mod. I'm impressed by the depth of the mod. THANKS!

I have a question about the roman naming system in EB. As far as I know the roman naming practice, the son of Lucius Cornelius Scipio should bear a name like Publius Cornelius Scipio. In EB however, the son's name would be Publius Mallius (or other nomen gentile) Scipio. So the actual familiy name is lost within one generation. Is there a reason why the cognomina are inherited from father to son and not the nomina gentile?

Thanks again.
Moonfog

**blacksnail** · 02-10-2007, 14:04

I believe it's a hardcoded issue with how RTW handles names of succeeding generations.

**Moonfog** · 02-10-2007, 14:22

Originally Posted by blacksnail

I believe it's a hardcoded issue with how RTW handles names of succeeding generations.

I don't think this is a hardcoded issue. For RTR we made a working cognomen mod. Roman caracters got three names of which the nomen gentile and the cognomen were given from father to son.

**L.C.Cinna** · 02-10-2007, 14:51

Well, there's one thing I'd like to ask. Is the EB team going to work on the Roman names any further? Many of the names which turn up (talking about nomen gentile and cognomina) are not correct for the timeframe of the game. Many of them indicate provincial birth, very low class origin or even names families with freed slaves as ancestors would have. Such romanized foreign names start to appear in the higher classes like generals and such only between 50 to 100 years after the games timeframe. I have to write down the names of some of my generals as I don't remember them at the moment.

One of them for example is called Diocletianus, like the later emperor, a greek name like that wouldn't appear during the Republic or early Principate. People with such a low social status or provincial birth didn't have the chance to advance to higher ranks or social status. That only happened after the Romans started to grant citizenship to other people and auxiliaries on a more regular and more widespread basis. Of course I would offer my help if the EB teams was going to work on the names.

**Omanes Alexandrapolites** · 02-10-2007, 15:32

Originally Posted by blacksnail

I believe it's a hardcoded issue with how RTW handles names of succeeding generations.

I believe that this can be resolved blacksnail.

I am sure that EB does it's naming system in the format: Publius Cornelius Scipio while RTR does it in the format: Publius Cornelius Scipio. The first section of the name, in red, is what the engine recognises as the character's first name. This is never passed down through a family by default. However the section in blue, what the engine recognises as the character's second name usually is. This means that in EB one of this character's children could become known as Augustus Gaius Scipio while in RTR the child could become known as Augustus Cornelius Scipio.

Good luck with understanding my complex post which even I don't understand. Cheers!

**Teleklos Archelaou** · 02-10-2007, 15:51

That could be worked on. It's a hell of a lot of work though honestly.

Asking for names to work only in certain time periods within the mod's time frame is something unreasonable though, but how many names do we have that are totally outside of the mod's timeframe? A few might have slipped in, but I don't think there is a large number.

**Zaknafien** · 02-10-2007, 16:13

this should be fixed with our new Roman ethnicities we are working on. That's all Im going to say right now though.

**L.C.Cinna** · 02-10-2007, 16:17

oh ok thank you.

@Teleklos: No I wasn't talking about specific names for each century or something like that. The change of names during the whole EB period is not that big as citizenship was very limited during this time. The big changes appear much later during the principate.

Just looked at the list in the EB files. Names I'd remove for sure are

Ammonius ,Dio ,Maesa,Mamaea, Soaemias, Caracalla, Constantinius, Elagabalus, Gaetulicus, Odaenathus, Timesitheus, Augustus, Diocles, Diocletianvs, ...they are all latinized versions of foreign names and would not appear during our period. Augustus is a title and names like Constantinius are not common as well. the names we come across in late antiquity differ a lot from the republican and I don't know, there are many like Constantinius which would be possible theoretically but don't really appear in reality. I don't want to sound picky...It's like naming your child Brunhilde nowadays, I mean you could but people would probably think you're weird.(nothing against any Brunhildes running around here)

**Moonfog** · 02-10-2007, 18:23

Originally Posted by Zaknafien

this should be fixed with our new Roman ethnicities we are working on. That's all Im going to say right now though.

Good news, Zaknafien. I'll wait and see. Thanks for the info.

**CountArach** · 02-10-2007, 23:16

Originally Posted by Zaknafien

this should be fixed with our new Roman ethnicities we are working on. That's all Im going to say right now though.

Oh! Oh! So tantalisingly close!

**Philippus Flavius Homovallumus** · 02-10-2007, 17:25

Originally Posted by Omanes Alexandrapolites the Idiot

I believe that this can be resolved blacksnail.

I am sure that EB does it's naming system in the format: Publius Cornelius Scipio while RTR does it in the format: Publius Cornelius Scipio. The first section of the name, in red, is what the engine recognises as the character's first name. This is never passed down through a family by default. However the section in blue, what the engine recognises as the character's second name usually is. This means that in EB one of this character's children could become known as Augustus Gaius Scipio while in RTR the child could become known as Augustus Cornelius Scipio.

Good luck with understanding my complex post which even I don't understand. Cheers!

Months ahead of you, thats why I have Zak doing all that reasearch.