# What was Julius Caesar's father's name? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 24, 2005, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272 "2005-05-24T16:23:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ktest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/258eb7/32.png) [@ktest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ktest)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/1 "2005-05-24T16:23:02Z")
Since Caesar basically just means king, his dad was not Mr. Caesar. ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Gene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@Soylent\_Gene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Gene)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/2 "2005-05-24T16:27:09Z")
Mr. Julius his first name?..I havent a clue ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/3 "2005-05-24T16:31:59Z")
> **[Julius Caesar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar#Early_life)** > > Gaius Julius Caesar (Latin: \[ˈɡaːiʊs ˈjuːliʊs ˈkae̯sar\]; 12 July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman. A member of the First Triumvirate, Caesar led the Roman armies in the Gallic Wars before defeating Pompey in a civil war and governing the Roman Republic as a dictator from 49 BC until his assassination in 44 BC. He played a critical role in the events that led to the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. > In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey form... > [@](#): > > His father and namesake, Gaius Julius Caesar, achieved the rank of praetor (see cursus honorum). His mother was an Aurelia from the Cottae branch, a rich and influential family of plebeian stock. ---
**Author:** ![Gaius.Cornelius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b487fb/32.png) [@Gaius.Cornelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gaius.Cornelius)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/4 "2005-05-24T16:32:51Z")
The father of the famous Gaius Julius Caesar was himself named Gaius Julius Caesar. See [Julius Caesar](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Ceaser). Caesar did not mean “king” in the time of Julius, it was just a family name. Having been made dictator for life, the emporers that followed were keen to bathe in the reflected glory of the name of Caesar. The first emporer of Rome was Augustus, he was a nephew of Julius Caesar but was adopted as his son and clearly had a right to use that name. Later emporers also called themselves Caesar with little or no family connection, so it was that the word came to mean “king”. ---
**Author:** ![ktest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/258eb7/32.png) [@ktest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ktest)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/5 "2005-05-24T16:38:27Z")
> [@Gaius.Cornelius](#): > > Caesar did not mean “king” in the time of Julius, it was just a family name. I got that wrong. I checked more google and found out Caesar mean “hairy” > [@](#): > > [Julius Caesar biography](http://lucius-julius-caesar.biography.ms/) > Caesar is latin for hairy. This surname was originally a nickname given to the family. Overtime the nickname became a surname. The surname came out due, to the male members had hairy foreheads. ---
**Author:** ![Soylent\_Gene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@Soylent\_Gene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Gene)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/6 "2005-05-24T16:45:43Z")
I read somewhere that his family name was Julius. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/7 "2005-05-24T16:47:43Z")
Just to be clear, the famous Caesar’s given name was “Gaius”. His family name was “Julius”. “Caesar” was a family nickname. Aristocratic Roman families often had these nicknames because there was a limited number of familial names, so different branches were given nicknames to distinguish them. ---
**Author:** ![ktest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/258eb7/32.png) [@ktest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ktest)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/8 "2005-05-24T16:51:14Z")
His father’s name was Gaius. According to that link I gave above, Caesar became the family surname hundreds of years before Julius Caesar was born. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/9 "2005-05-24T18:19:46Z")
And, of course, in spite of having a cognomen named Caesar, the famous one started to go bald early. ---
**Author:** ![hildea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ebca7d/32.png) [@hildea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hildea)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/10 "2005-05-24T18:31:10Z")
A typcial Roman male name would consist of a praenomen, a nomen, and an (optional) cognomen (or several). Gaius is a praenomen. There were very few of these names (note how I cunningly avoid to write “nomen” in plural, as I have only a foggy notion of latin grammar). Also, a family would typically use only a few of those available, so anyone shouting “Gaius” in a household would probably get a chours of “yes” from several family members. The nomen, Julius in this case (Julia for women) is a family name, or more properly a clan name. All families belonging to the gens Julia would have the same nomen, and there could be a lot of these families, sharing an ancestor some time back. AFAIK the gens Julia was a pretty small clan at the time of _The_ Gaius Julius Caesar. The cognomen (zero, one or many) could be associated with a family, like Caesar. Our Caesar’s father, uncle(s), and (if he’d had any, which he didn’t) brothers and sons would all have been both Julius and Caesar. Some people would have a cognomen (or more) that was personal. It could be something given at/after birth, like Orestes (“mother died in birth”) or Dentatus (“born with teeth”), or something earned later, like Metellus (“a liberated mercenary”) or Ahenobarbus (“red- or bronze-bearded”). And a name earned on personal merit might become a family one, like Caesar (or Metellus, for that matter). Some names, like Africanus or Numidicus, might be earned after leading a successful military campaign (in Africa or Numidia, in these cases). IIRC these names had to be awarded by the Senate. You might also try to pick a cognomen yourself, hoping that it’d be used by others. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus chose his “Magnus” (“the great”) himself. No false modesty there! (That factoid is from McCullough’s novels, but she’s pretty good both at research and at mentioning it when she goes fanciful, so I’m inclined to take it at face value.) Some names are wonderfully unflattering, like Pipinna (“little boy’s penis”) or or Galba (“potbelly”). Whether Gaius Julius Caeasar’s friends and close relatives would have called him “Gaius”, “Gaius Julius”, or “Caesar” when being informal, I’m not sure. McCullough describes a culture shift, where adressing your husband by cognomen is terribly informal, bordering on bad manners, in the time of Caesar’s grandparents, and uncontroversial in his time, but I’ve no idea how factual that part is – it seems like something which would be unlikely to be documented. Source: The appendixes to Colleen McCullough’s “The First Man in Rome”. See also [Wikipedia on Roman naming conventions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_naming_convention). ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/11 "2005-05-24T18:33:56Z")
Sid? 😉 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Bruin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/12 "2005-05-24T19:16:00Z")
[Imperial stemmata](http://www.roman-emperors.org/stemm.htm) for any of those interested (biographical material only starts at Octavian however). ---
**Author:** ![Telperien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@Telperien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperien)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/13 "2005-05-24T20:13:38Z")
Plurals would be praenomina, nomina, and cognomina, in case you’re wondering. ---
**Author:** ![hildea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ebca7d/32.png) [@hildea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hildea)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2005, 9:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/14 "2005-05-25T09:51:37Z")
Thanks, **Harimad-sol** 🙂 The only latin plurality I could remember was someone describing Gaius Marius’ soldiers as “an army of _cunni_”. It’s a good thing I didn’t try to extrapolate based on that. (_Cunnus_ means what you’d expect when comparing to modern English. You have to love an author who includes swear words in her research!) ---
**Author:** ![Telperien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/65b543/32.png) [@Telperien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperien)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2005, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/15 "2005-05-25T11:50:16Z")
> [@hildea](#): > > Thanks, **Harimad-sol** 🙂 > > The only latin plurality I could remember was someone describing Gaius Marius’ soldiers as “an army of _cunni_”. It’s a good thing I didn’t try to extrapolate based on that. > > (_Cunnus_ means what you’d expect when comparing to modern English. You have to love an author who includes swear words in her research!) You’re welcome. I read those McCulloughs up to _Fortune’s Favorites_ and then decided to take a break, so I know the swears! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2005, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/16 "2005-05-25T16:38:56Z")
> [@hildea](#): > > Gaius is a praenomen. There were very few of these names (note how I cunningly avoid to write “nomen” in plural, as I have only a foggy notion of latin grammar). Also, a family would typically use only a few of those available, so anyone Anyone care to elucidate on that. Why were there so few names available to use? ---
**Author:** ![Eurograff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Eurograff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eurograff)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2005, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/17 "2005-05-25T17:00:24Z")
> [@Earl Snake-Hips Tucker](#): > > Anyone care to elucidate on that. Why were there so few names available to use? Because these first names weren’t very important, basically. See the wikipedia link that **hildea** posted. The main function of praenomina was just to differentiate siblings from each other, so only a handful was needed. Also since Romans were very practical people, they liked to be able to use a clear shorthand for names, so C. was always Gaius and M. was always Marcus. And of course Romans were pretty traditional people who didn’t care to invent entirely new names just for the sake of it. ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Helen\_s\_Eidolon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_s_Eidolon)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2005, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/18 "2005-05-25T18:07:35Z")
There were, in fact, somewhat around 18 names commonly used in total. Let me see if I can get a list… Aulus Appius Gaius (Caius) Gnaeus Decimus Kaeso Lucius Marcus Manius Mamercus Numerius Publius Quintus Servius Sextus Spurius Titus Tiberius Even better, women were usually just known as their family’s cognomen, ie. ‘Julia’. ---
**Author:** ![SCSimmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e495f1/32.png) [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2005, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/19 "2005-05-25T18:29:28Z")
> [@hildea](#): > > Some names are wonderfully unflattering, like Pipinna (“little boy’s penis”) or or Galba (“potbelly”). I always wondered how Marcus Tullius got stuck with ‘Cicero’ (“garbanzo bean”), myself … ---
**Author:** ![Ms\_Boods](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5e9695/32.png) [@Ms\_Boods](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms_Boods)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2005, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272/20 "2005-05-25T18:50:53Z")
The third name was the cognomen, and any of the extra ones which followed were called agnomen; if they weren’t some nickname based on a personal attribute, they derived from an achievement. So there was a naval commander who had Asina added to his name (which means ‘ass’ because he was a lousy commander), or you find people with Pulcher, or ‘pretty boy’ added because they were fops. But then you have Scipio Africanus, who gained Africanus because of his military prowess and adding the new province to Rome’s territory. Accumulating agnomeni became a status symbol amongst the senatorial elite – there was one guy in the second century (AD) who had something like 22 of them. Women were generally stuck with a female version of the clan name, as noted – and sometimes also caled Prima, Secunda, Tertia, names which look pretty but just mean First, Second, Third. After the second century AD, though, one starts to see more diverse and interesting names for women. I apologise that all my books are currently packed away, or would write out how freedmen (and women) created their new names; all I can remember without my sources is that the women’s new names would include a backwards ‘C’ (for Caia, or Gaia – Gaius/Caius and Gaia were the John and Jane Doe names of Rome; in the marriage ceremony, for example, one of the statement made by the bride was ‘Ubi Gauis, sum Gaia’ – whereever you are Gaius, I am [your] Gaia.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-julius-caesars-fathers-name/305272.md?page=2)