CHAPTER III
.
NOMINA.
SECTION I.—_Attius._
The Latin nomina were those that came by inheritance, and denoted the position of the gens in the state, its antiquity, and sometimes its origin. Their derivation is often, however, more difficult to trace than that of any other names, being lost in the darkness of the Oscan and Latin dialects; and in the latter times they were very wide-spread, being adopted by wholesale by persons who received the franchise, as Roman citizens, from the individual who conferred it; and after the time of Caracalla, A.D. 212, when all the free inhabitants of the empire became alike Roman citizens, any person might adopt whatever name he chose, or even change his own if he disliked it. The feminine of this gentile name, as it was called, was the inheritance of the daughters; and on marriage, the feminine of the husband’s nomen was sometimes, though not uniformly, assumed.
These names are here placed in alphabetical order, as there seems to be nothing else to determine their position, and it is in accordance with the rigid Roman fashion of regularity.
Thus we begin with the Accian, Attian, or Actian gens; one of no great rank, but interesting as having been fixed on by tradition as the ancestry of the great mountain lords of Este, who were the parents of the house of Ferarra in Italy, and of the house of Brunswick, which has given six sovereigns to Britain. Accius is probably derived from Acca, the mother of the Lares, an old Italian goddess, afterwards turned into the nurse of Romulus. Valerius, however, deduces both it and Appius from a forgotten Sabine prænomen Attus. The Appian gens was not a creditable one; but Appia was sometimes the name of mediæval Roman dames.
The genealogists of the house of Este say that Marcus Actius married Julia, sister of the great Cæsar, and trace their line downwards till modernized pronunciation had made the sound Azzo.
Him whom they count as Azo I. of Este was born in 450, and from him and his descendants Azzo and Azzolino were long common in Italy, though now discarded.
SECTION II.—_Æmilius._
Almost inextricable confusion attends the development of the title of one of the oldest and most respectable of the plebeian gentes, namely the Æmilian, anciently written Aimilian. The family was Sabine, and the word is, therefore, probably Oscan; but the bearers were by no means agreed upon its origin, some declaring that it was αἵμυλος (flattering or witty), and called it a surname of their founder, Mamercus, whom some called the son of Pythagoras, others of Numa. The later Æmilii, again, claimed to descend from Aemylos, a son of Ascanius; and others of them, less aspiring, contented themselves with Amulius, the granduncle of Romulus. Can this most intangible Amulius be, after all, a remnant of the Teutonic element in the Roman race, and be the same with the mythical Amal, whence the Gothic Amaler traced their descent? It is curious that _maal_ or _âmal_ means _work_ in Hebrew, while _aml_ is work, likewise, in old Norse, as our _moil_ is in English, though in Sanscrit _amala_ is spotless. Altogether, it seems most probable that the word _mal_ (a spot or stroke) may underlie all these forms, just as it does the German _mal_ (time); that Amal was, in truth, the dimly remembered forefather; and that thus the proud Æmilii of Rome, and the wild Amaler of the forests, bore in their designations the tokens of a common stock.
Several obscure saints bore the name of Æmilius or Æmilianus; and Emilij has always been a prevailing masculine name in Russia. In Spain, a hermit, Saint Æmilianus, is always known as St. Milhan. Emilio was of old-standing in Italy; but the great prevalence in France of Émile, of late, was owing to Rousseau’s educational work, the hero of which had numerous namesakes among the children born in the years preceding the Revolution.
The feminine had been forgotten until Boccaccio wrote his _Teseide_, and called the heroine Emilia. It was at once translated or imitated in all languages, and became mixed up with the Amalie already existing in Germany. Amalie of Mansfeld lived in 1493; Amalie of Wurtemburg, in 1550; and thence the name spread throughout Germany, whence the daughter of George II. brought it to England, and though she wrote herself Amelia, was called Princess Emily. Both forms are recognized in most European countries, though often confounded together, and still worse, with Amy and Emma.
┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ Slovak. │ Lusatian. │ │Emily │Émilie │Emilia │Emilija │Mila │ │Emilia │ │ │Milica │Milka │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
SECTION III.—_Antonius._
Two gentes were called Antonius, a word that is not easy to trace. Some explain it as inestimable, but the Triumvir himself chose to deduce it from Antius, a son of Hercules. One of these clans was patrician, with the cognomen Merenda; the other plebeian, without any third name, and it was to the latter that the avenger of Cæsar and lover of Cleopatra belonged—Mark Anthony, Marc Antoine, or Marcantonio, as modern tongues have clipped his Marcus Antonius. The clipping had, however, been already performed before the resuscitation of his evil fame in the fifteenth century, for both his names had become separately saintly, and therefore mutilated; Mark in the person of the Evangelist, Antonius in that of the great hermit of the fourth century—the first to practise the asceticism which resulted in the monastic system. Of Egyptian birth, his devotions, his privations, and his conflicts with Satan, were equally admired in the Eastern and Western Churches, and Antonios has been as common among the Greeks as Antonius among the Latin Christians.
St. Antony was already very popular when St. Antonio of Padua further increased the Italian devotion to the name, and Antonio has ever since been exceedingly common in Italy and Spain. Classical pedantry made Antonio Paleario turn it into Aonio in honour of the Aonian choir; but whatever he chose to call himself he made glorious by his life and death.
The Dutch seem to have needlessly added the silent _h_, and we probably learnt it from them. The popularity of Antony has much diminished since the Reformation in England, where perhaps it is less used than in any other country.
┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Provençal. │ Italian. │ │Antony │Antoine │Antoni │Antonio │ │Anthony │ │ │Tonio │ │Tony │ │ │Tonetto │ │Antholin │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ German. │ Frisian. │ Dutch. │ Swiss. │ │Antonius │Tönnes │Anthonius │Antoni │ │Tenton │Tonjes │Theunis │Toni │ │Tony │ │Toontje │ │ │ │ │Tool │ │ │ │ │Antoonije │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Russian. │ Polish. │ Slovak. │ Servian. │ │Antonij │Antoni │Anton │Antun │ │Anton │Antek │Tone │Antonija │ │ │Antos │Tonek │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Lusatian. │ Lett. │ Esthonian. │ Hungarian. │ │Anto │Antons │Tönnis │Antal │ │Hanto │Tennis │Tonnio │ │ │Tonisch │Tanne │ │ │ │Tonk │ │ │ │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘
The feminine form, Antonia, is very common in Italy and Spain. The Germans have it as Antonie, and this was the original name of Maria Antonia, whom we have learnt to regard with pitying reverence as Marie Antoinette, whence Toinette is a common French contraction.
┌────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┬────────────┐ │ French. │ Italian. │ Swedish. │ Swiss. │Lithuanian. │ │Antoinette │Antonia │Antonia │Tonneli │Ande │ │Toinette │Antonietta │Antonetta │ │ │ │Toinon │Antonica │ │ │ │ └────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┴────────────┘
The Aurelian gens was an old Sabine one, and probably derived its name from _aurum_ (gold), the _oro_ of Italy and _or_ of France, though others tried to take it from _Helios_ (the sun).
The old name, Aurelia, for a chrysalis was, like it, taken from the glistening golden spots on the cases of some of the butterfly pupæ. The Aurelian gens was old and noble, and an Aurelia was the mother of Julius Cæsar.
SECTION IV.—_Cæcilius._
The most obvious origin of the nomen of the great Cæcilian gens would be _cæcus_ (blind); in fact _Cæcilia_ means a slow-worm, as that reptile was supposed to be blind; but the Cæcilii would by no means condescend to the blind or small-eyed ancestor; and while some of them declared that they were the sons of Cæcas, a companion of Æneas, others traced their source to the founder of Præneste, the son of Vulcan, Cæculus, who was found beside a hearth, and called from _caleo_ (to heat), the same with καίω (to burn). There was a large gens of this name, famous and honourable, though plebeian; but rather remarkably, the feminine form has always been of more note than the masculine. As has been before said, Caia Cæcilia is said to have been the real name of Tanaquil, the model Roman matron, patroness of all other married dames; and who has not heard of the tomb of Cæcilia Metella? But the love and honour of the Roman ladies has passed on to another Cæcilia, a Christian of the days of Alexander Severus, a wife, though vowed to virginity, and a martyr singing hymns to the last. Her corpse was disinterred in a perfect state two hundred years after, when it was enshrined in a church built over her own house, which gives a title to a cardinal. A thousand years subsequently, in 1599, her sarcophagus was again opened, and a statue made exactly imitating the lovely, easy, and graceful position in which the limbs remained.
This second visit to her remains was not, however, needed to establish her popularity. She is as favourite a saint with the Roman matrons as is St. Agnes with their daughters; and the fact of her having sung till her last breath, established her connection with music. An instrument became her distinguishing mark; and as this was generally a small organ, she got the credit of having invented it, and became the patroness of music and poetry, as St. Katharine of eloquence and literature, and St. Barbara of architecture and art. Her day was celebrated by especial musical performances; even in the eighteenth century an ode on St. Cecilia’s day was a special occasion for the laudation of music; and Dryden and Pope have fixed it in our minds, by their praises, not so much of Cecilia, as of Timotheus and Orpheus. Already, in the eleventh century, the musical saint had been given as a patroness; and the contemporaries, Philip I. of France, and William I. of England, had each a daughter Cécile.
From that time, Cécile in France was only less popular than the English Cicely was with all ranks before the Reformation. Cicely Neville, the Rose of Raby, afterwards Duchess of York, called “Proud Cis,” gave it the chief note in England; but her princess grandchild, Cicely Plantagenet, was a nun, and thus did not transmit it to any noble family. After the Reformation, Cicely sank to the level of “stammel waistcoat,” and was the milkmaid’s generic name. And so the gentlewomen who had inherited Cicely from their grandmothers, were ashamed of it; and it became Cecilia, until the present reaction against fine names setting in, brought them back to Cecil and Cecily. In Ireland, the Norman settlers introduced it, and it became Sighile.
┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Italian. │ German. │ │Cecilia │Cécile │Cecilia │Cacilia │ │Cecily │ │ │ │ │Cicely │ │ │ │ │Cecil │ │ │ │ │Sisley │ │ │ │ │Sis │ │ │ │ │Sissot │ │ │ │ │Cis │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Hamburg. │ Russian. │ Polish. │ Illyrian. │ │Cile │Zezilija │Cecylia │Cecilia │ │ │ │ │Cecilija │ │ │ │ │Cila │ │ │ │ │Cilika │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘
Sessylt, the British form of the masculine, lasted on long in Wales; and the Italians kept up Cecilio. The English masculine Cecil is, however, the surname of the families of Salisbury and Exeter, adopted as a Christian name.
Moreover, Cæcilianus is supposed to be the origin of Kilian, one of the many Keltic missionaries who spread the light of the Gospel on the Continent, in the seventh century. St. Kilian is said to have been of Irish birth. He preached in Germany, and was martyred at Wurtzburg; and his name has never quite ceased to be used in the adjacent lands.[56]
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Footnote 56:
Facciolati; Smith; Valerius Maximus; Butler; Jameson; Michaelis; Pott.
SECTION V.—_Cœlius._
Cœles Vivenna, an Etruscan general, named the Cœlian hill, and the Cœlian gens, whence the Italians have continued Celio and Celia. In Venice the latter becomes Zilia and Ziliola, and is often to be found belonging to noble ladies and the wives of doges. At Naples it was Liliola, and it seems to be the true origin of Lilian and Lilias. The Irish, too, have adopted it as Sile, or Sheelah, and Célie and Celia have been occasionally adopted by both French and English, under some misty notion of a connection with _cœlum_ (heaven). The prevalence of Celia among the lower classes in English towns is partly owing to the Irish Sheelah, partly to some confusion with Cecilia.
Cœlina was a virgin of Meaux, converted to a holy life by St. Geneviève. She is the origin of the French Céline, who probably suggested the English Selina, though, as we spell this last, we refer it to the Greek Selene (the moon).
SECTION VI.—_Claudius._
Another personal defect, namely lameness, probably was the source of the appellation of the Claudian gens, although by some the adjective _claudus_ is rejected in favour of the old verb _clueo_, from the same root as the Greek _kleo_, I hear, and _kluo_, I am called, or I am famous, meaning to be called, _i. e._, famed. The Claudii were a family of evil fame, with all the darker characteristics of the Roman, and they figure in most of the tragedies of the city. They were especially proud and stern, and never adopted any one into their family till the Emperor Claudius adopted Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who did not improve the fame of the Claudian surname of Nero. But the reign of the Emperor Claudius and the number of his freedmen, and new citizens, gave his gentile name an extensive vogue, and from his conquests in Britain was there much adopted. Besides, the Claudia who sends her greeting to St. Timothy in St. Paul’s Epistle, is believed to have been the daughter of a British prince and wife of Pudens, whose name is preserved in inscriptions at Colchester.
The epigrams of Martial speak of a British lady of the same name, and thus Claudia is marked by the concurrence of two very dissimilar authorities as one of the first British Christians, while the hereditary Welsh name of Gladys, the Cornish Gladuse, corroborate the Christian reverence for Claudia. The masculine form, Gladus, is likewise used, and in Scotland Glaud, recently softened into Claud, is not uncommon. Claudie is very common in Provence. Louis XII., who gave both his daughters male names, called the eldest Claude, and when she was the wife of François I., la Reine Claude plums were so termed in her honour. Her daughter carried Claude into the House of Lorraine, where it again became masculine, and was frequent in the family of Guise. The painter Gelée assumed the name of Claude de Lorraine in honour of his patrons, and thus arose all the picturesque associations conveyed by the word Claude.
Claudine is a favourite female Swiss form.[57]
┌──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬──────────┐ │ English. │ Scotch. │ French. │ Italian. │ Russian. │ Slovak. │ │Claud │Glaud │Claude │Claudio │Klavdij │Klavdi │ │ │ │Godon │ │ —————— │ │ │ │ │ │ │Illyrian. │ │ │ │ │ │ │Klavdij │ │ ├──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴──────────┤ │ FEMININE. │ ├─────────────────────┬─────────────────────┬─────────────────────┤ │ French. │ Welsh. │ Italian. │ │Claude │Gladys │Claudia │ │Claudine │ │ │ │Claudie │ │ │ └─────────────────────┴─────────────────────┴─────────────────────┘
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Footnote 57:
Facciolati; Smith; Rees, _Welsh Saints_.
SECTION VII.—_Cornelius, &c._
The far more honourably distinguished clan of Cornelius has no traceable origin, unless from _cornu belli_ (a war horn), but this is a suggestion of the least well-informed etymologists, and deserves no attention. Scipio and Sylla were the most noted families of this gens, both memorable for very dissimilar qualities; and Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, inherited her name from her father, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus I. The centurion of the _Italian_ band was probably a hereditary Roman Cornelius; but earliest gentile Christian though he were, he was not canonized, and the saint of the Western Church is a martyred Pope Cornelius of the third century, whose relics were brought to Compiègne by Charles the Bald, and placed in the Abbey of St. Corneille, whence again a portion was carried to the Chapter of Rosnay, in Flanders. This translation accounts for the popularity of both the masculine and feminine forms in the Low Countries, in both kingdoms of which they constantly are found, and where Cornelius gets shortened into Kees, Knelis, Nöll, or Nelle, and Cornelia into Keetje, or Kee. As an attempt to translate the native Keltic names beginning with _cu_, or _con_, Cornelius, or Corney, is one of the most frequent Irish designations. Nelleson is the Dutch surname, and Nelson is as likely to be thus derived as from the northern Nielson. The Dantzic contraction is Knelz, and the Illyrians call the feminine Drenka!
The great Fabian gens was old Latin, and was said by Pliny to be so called from their having been the first to cultivate the bean, _faba_, while others say the true form was _fodius_, or _fovius_, from their having invented the digging of pits, _foveæ_, for wolves, a proceeding rather in character with the wary patient disposition displayed by the greatest man of the race, Quintus Fabius Maximus, whose agnomen of Cunctator so well describes the policy that wasted away the forces of the Carthaginian invader. Fabio has been occasionally a modern Italian name; Fabiola is the diminutive of Fabia; Fabianus the adoptive augmentation, whence the occasional French Fabien, and, more strange to record, the Lithuanian Pobjus.
Fabricius is probably from _Faber_ (a workman), but there was no person of note of the family except Caius Fabricius Luscinus, whose interview with Pyrrhus and his elephant has caused him to be for ever remembered. Fabrizio Colonna, however, seems to be his only namesake.
_Flavus_ and _Fulvus_ both mean shades of yellow, and there were both a Flavian and a Fulvian gens, no doubt from the complexion of an early ancestor, Flavius being probably a yellow-haired mountaineer with northern blood; Fulvius a tawny Italian. It is in favour of this supposition that Constantius, who brought the Flavian gens to the imperial throne, had the agnomen Chlorus, also expressing a light complexion. Out of compliment to his family the derivatives of Flavius became common, as Flavianus, Flavia, and Flavilla. Flavio is now and then found in modern Italy, and Flavia figured in the poetry and essays of the last century. Fulvia, “the married woman,” as her rival Cleopatra calls her, was the wife of Antony, and gave her name an evil fame by her usage of the head of the murdered Cicero.[58]
The Herminian gens is believed to be of Sabine origin, and its first syllable, that lordly _herr_, which we traced in the Greek Hera and Hercules, and shall find again in the German Herman. There is little doubt that the Roman Herminius and the brave Cheruscan chief, whom he called Arminius, were in the same relationship as were the Emilii and Amaler.
Herminius is the word that left to Italy the graceful legacy of Erminia, which was in vogue, by inheritance, among Italian ladies when Tasso bestowed it upon the Saracen damsel who was captured by Tancred, and fascinated by the graces of her captor. Thence the French adopted it as Hermine, and it has since been incorrectly supposed to be the Italian for Hermione; indeed, Scott indiscriminately calls the mysterious lady in George Heriot’s house Erminia or Hermione. The Welsh have obtained it likewise, by inheritance, in the form of Ermin, which, however, they now murder by translating it into Emma.
Hortensius (a gardener), from _hortus_, a garden, belonged to an honourable old plebeian gens, and has been continued in Italy, both in the masculine Ortensio, and feminine Ortensia, whence the French obtained their Hortense, probably from Ortensia Mancini, the niece of Mazarin.
The Horatian gens was a very old and noble one, memorable for the battle of the Horatii, in the mythic times of early Rome. Some explain their nomen by _hora_ (an hour), and make it mean the punctual, but this is a triviality suggested by the sound, and the family themselves derived it from the hero ancestor, Horatus, to whom an oak wood was dedicated. The poet Horace bore it as an adoptive name, being of a freedman’s family. Except for Orazio, in Italy, the name of Titian’s son, it slept till Corneille’s tragedy of _Les Horaces_ brought it forward, and the influence of Orazio made it Horatio in England. Thus the brother and son of Sir Robert Walpole bore it, and the literary note of the younger Horace Walpole made it fashionable. Then came our naval hero to give it full glory, and that last mention of his daughter Horatia seems to have brought the feminine forward of late years. The name is not popular elsewhere, but is called by the Russians, Goratij, by the Slovaks, Orac.[59]
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Footnote 58:
Smith; Butler; Facciolati; _Irish Society_.
SECTION VIII.—_Julius._
“At puer Ascanius, cui nunc cognomen Iulo, Additur Ilus erat dum res stetit Ilia regno.”
“The boy Ascanius, now Iulus named— Ilus he was while Ilium’s realm still stood,”
quoth Jupiter, in the first book of the _Æneid_, whence Virgil’s commentators aver that Ascanius was at first called after Ilus, the river that gave Troy the additional title of Ilium; but that during the conquest of Italy he was termed Iulus, from ιουλος (the first down on the chin), because he was still beardless when he killed Mezentius. The father of gods and men continues:
“Nascetur pulchrâ Trojanus origine Cæsar, (Imperium Oceano, famam qui terminet astris,) Julius, a magno nomen Iulo.”
“A Trojan, by high lineage shall arise— Cæsar (whose conquering fame the sea and stars shall bound), Called Julius, from Iulus, mighty name.”
The Julian gens certainly exceeded Rome in antiquity, and one of their distinguished families bore the cognomen of Iulus; but in spite of Jupiter and Virgil, Livy makes Iulus, or Ascanius, not the Trojan son of Æneas and the deserted Creusa, but the Latin son of Æneas and Lavinia, and modern etymologists hazard the conjecture that Julus may be only a diminutive of dius (divine), since the derivation of Jupiter from Deus pater (father of gods) proves that such is the tendency of the language.
The family resided at Alba Longa till the destruction of the city by Tullus Hostilius, and then came to Rome, where, though of very high rank, they did not become distinguished till, once for all, their star culminated in the great Caius Julius Cæsar, after whom the Julii were only adoptive, though Julia was the favourite name of the emperors' daughters, and their freedmen and newly-made citizens multiplied Julius and Julianus throughout the empire.
Julius was hereditary throughout the empire, and lingered on long in Wales, Wallachia, and Italy. It is the most obvious source for the French Gilles; though, as has been already said, that word claims to be the Greek Aigidios, and is like both the Keltic Giolla and Teutonic Gil. The modern French Jules and English Julius were the produce of the revived classical taste. The latter belonged to a knight whose family name was Cæsar; and Clarendon tells a story of a serious alarm being excited in a statesman by finding a note in his pocket with the ominous words “Remember Julius Cæsar,” which left him in dread of the ides of March, until he recollected that it was a friendly reminder of the humble petition of Sir Julius Cæsar.
┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │English. │Welsh. │Breton. │French. │ │Julius │Iolo │Sulio │Jules │ │ │ │Iola │Julot │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Italian. │ Spanish and │ German. │ Wallachian. │ │ │ Portuguese. │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Giulio │Julio │Julius │Julie │ │ │ │ │ —————————— │ │ │ │ │ Slavonic. │ │ │ │ │Julij │
The feminine shared the same fate, being hereditary in Italy, and adopted as ornamental when classical names came into fashion in other countries. The heroine of Rousseau’s _Nouvelle Heloïse_ made Julie very common in France.
┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English, │ French and │ Italian. │ Russian. │ │ Spanish and │ German. │ │ │ │ Portuguese. │ │ │ │ │Julia │Julie │Giulia │Julija │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Polish. │ Lett. │ Hungarian. │ Slovak. │ │Julia │Jule │Juli │Iliska │ │Julka │ │Julis │ —————————— │ │ │ │Juliska │ Breton. │ │ │ │ │Sulia │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘
As every family that in turn mounted the imperial throne was supposed to be adopted into the Julian gens, all bore its appellation; and thus it was that out of the huge stock of nomina that had accumulated in the family of Constantius, the apostate bore by way of distinction the adoptive form of Julianus.
As the adoptive form this was more widely diffused than Julius itself in the Latinized provinces, and thus came to the Conde Julian, execrated by Spain as the betrayer of his country into the hands of the Moors.
To redeem the name of Julian from the unpopularity to which two apostates would seem to have condemned it, it belonged to no less than ten saints, one of whom was the nucleus of a legend afloat in the world. He was said to have been told by a hunted stag that he would be the murderer of his own parents; and though he fled into another country to avoid the possibility, he unconsciously fulfilled his destiny, by slaying them in a fit of jealousy before he had recognized them when they travelled after him. In penance, he spent the rest of his life in ferrying distressed wayfarers over a river, and lodging them in his dwelling; and he thus became the patron of travellers and a saint of extreme popularity.
┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ Scotch. │ Welsh. │ Breton. │ │Julian │Jellon │Julion │Sulien │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ French. │ Spanish. │ Portuguese. │ Italian. │ │Julien │Julian │Juliao │Giuliano │ │ │ │ │ —————————— │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Julian │
The feminine was already abroad in the Roman empire in the days of martyrdom, when St. Juliana was beheaded at Nicomedia under Galerius; and in the days of Gregory the Great, her relics were supposed to be at Rome, but were afterwards divided between Brussels and Sablon. She is said to have been especially honoured in the Low Countries, and must likewise have been in high favour in Normandy, perhaps through the Flemish Duchess Matilda. Julienne was in vogue among the Norman families, and belonged to that illegitimate daughter of Henry I. whose children he so terribly maltreated in revenge for their father’s rebellion; and it long prevailed in England as Julyan: witness the heraldic and hunting prioress, Dame Julyan Berners; and, indeed, it became so common as Gillian, that Jill was the regular companion of Jack, as still appears in nursery rhyme; though now this good old form has almost entirely disappeared, except in the occasional un-English form of Juliana. In Brittany, it has lasted on as Suliana, the proper name of the nun-sister of Du Guesclin, who assisted his brave wife to disconcert the night assault of their late prisoner.
┌───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┬───────────────┐ │ English. │ French. │ Breton. │ Italian. │ │Julyan │Julienne │Suliana │Giuliana │ │Juliana │ │ │ │ │Gillian │ │ │ │ │Gill │ │ │ │ ├───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┼───────────────┤ │ Spanish, │ German. │ Slavonic. │ Hungarian. │ │ Portuguese, │ │ │ │ │and Wallachian.│ │ │ │ │Juliana │Juliana │Julijana │Julianja │ └───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┴───────────────┘
Another feminine diminutive, Julitta, was current in the empire in the time of persecution, and belongs in the calendar to a martyr at Cæsarea in Cappadocia, as well as to her who has been already mentioned as the mother of the infant St. Kyriakos, or Cyr, a babe of three years old. She was undergoing torture herself when she beheld his brains dashed out on the steps of the tribunal, and till her own death, she gave thanks for his safety and constancy. Together the mother and child were commemorated throughout the Church; and the church of St. Gillet records her in Cornwall, as does that of Llanulid in Wales. Her name, however, when there borne by her namesakes was corrupted into Elidan. Jolitte was used among the French peasantry, and Giulietta in Italy, whence Giulietta Capellet appears to have been a veritable lady, whose mournful story told in Da Porta’s novel, was adopted by Shakespeare, and rendered her name so much the property of poetry and romance, that subsequently Juliet, Juliette, and Giulietta, have been far more often christened in memory of the impassioned girl, than of the resolute Christian mother.[60]
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Footnote 59:
Butler; Michaelis.
Footnote 60:
Smith; Facciolati; Michaelis; Pott; Butler; Arrowsmith, _Geography_; Rees; Jameson; _Gesta Romanorum_.
SECTION IX.—_Lælius, &c._
Lælius, an unexplained gentile name, left to the Italians, Lelio, which was borne by one of the heresiarchs Socini; also Lelia, in French Lélie, and sometimes confused with the names from Cœlius.
It was said that the city of Pompeii was so called from _pompa_, the splendour or pomp with which Hercules founded it. However this might be, it is likely that from it came the nomen of the Pompeian gens, which did not appear in Rome till a late period, and which its enemies declared was founded by Aulus Pompeius, a flute-player. The gallant Cnæus Pompeius won for himself the surname of Magnus, and made sufficient impression on the world to have his name adapted to modern pronunciation by the Pompée of the French, and the English Pompey. When a little negro boy was the favourite appendage of fine ladies of the early seventeenth century, the habit of calling slaves by classical titles, made Pompey the usual designation of these poor little fellows; from whom it descended to little dogs, and though now out of fashion, even for them, it has obtained a set of associations that is likely to prevent that fine old Roman Pompey, surnamed the big, from obtaining any future namesakes, except in Italy, where Pompeio has always flourished, probably from hereditary associations.
On Roman authority, the Porcii were the breeders of _porcus_ (a pig), according to the homely, rural, and agricultural designations of old Latinity, which to modern ears have so dignified a sound. It was the clan of the two Catones, but the masculine has not prevailed; though that “woman well reputed, Cato’s daughter” Porcia, or, as the Italians spelt it, Porzia, caused her name to be handed on in her native land, where Shakespeare took it, not only for her, but for his other heroine—
“Nothing undervalued To Cato’s daughter, Brutus' Portia;”
from whom Portia, as after his example we make it, has become an exceptional fancy name. The Romans thought no scorn of the title of the unclean beast, and three families in other clans likewise bore its name, Verres, Scrofa, and Aper; the last, it is just possible, being the origin of the Sir Bors of the Round Table; in Welsh, Baez.
The origin of Sulpicius is not known. It may possibly be connected with the obsolete word that named Sulla, from a red spotted visage; but this is uncertain. There were three saints of the name: Severus Sulpicius, a friend of St. Martin; Sulpicius (called the severe), Bishop of Bourges, in the sixth century; and Sulpicius (called the gentle), also Bishop of Bourges, in the seventh. It is an arm of this last of the three that has led to the consecration of the celebrated church at Paris, in the name of St. Sulpice. In Germany, it is Sulpiz.
Terenus (soft or tender) was the origin given by the Romans to the Terentian gens, which produced Terentia, wife of Cicero, called in affection Terentilla, and likewise gave birth to the comic poet, Publius Terentius Afer, known to us as Terence, and to the Germans as Terenz. As a supposed rendering of Turlough, Terence is a very favourite name in Ireland, and is there called Terry, but it prevails nowhere else.
The meaning of the name of Sergius is not known, but the Sergian gens was very ancient, and believed itself to spring from the Trojans. From them Cataline descended, and from another branch the deputy Sergius Paullus, from whom some suppose St. Paul to have taken his name.
One saint called Sergius was martyred at the city of Rasapha, in Syria; and was honoured by the change of the name of the place to Sergiopolis, in Justinian’s time. His relics are at Rome and at Prague; but a far greater favourite as a namesake is the Russian Ssergie, who founded a monastery near Moscow, and died there in 1292, in the highest esteem for sanctity, so that his monastery is a place of devotional pilgrimage, and Ssergij or Sserezka are favourite names in Russia.[61]
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Footnote 61:
Butler; Michaelis; Smith; Facciolati; Courson, _Peuples Bretons_; Pott; Valerius Maximus.
SECTION X.—_Valerius._
Deep among the roots of Indo-European tongues lies the source of our adverb _well_, the German _wohl_, Saxon _wel_, Gothic _waila_, an evidently close connection of the Latin verb _valeo_ (to be well); and which the Keltic _gwall_ links again with the Greek καλός (well, or beautiful), related to the Sanscrit _kalya_ (healthy, able, or well).
_Valeo_ was both to be sound and to be worth, and to the old Roman a sound man was necessarily _valiant_, worth something in the battle; and _valor_, which to them and the Italians is still value, is to the chivalrous French and English _valour_.
This word of well-being named the old Sabine Valerian gens, one of the most noble and oldest in Rome, who had a little throne to themselves in the Circus, and were allowed to bury their dead within the walls of the city. The simple masculine form of the name had but two saints, and they were too obscure to be much followed, though Valère and Valerot as surnames have risen from it in France. The feminine of it was in honour at Rome for the sake of Valeria, the public-spirited lady who took the lead in persuading the mother of Coriolanus to intercede with her son to lay his vengeance aside and spare his mother-city; Valérie is a favourite French name, but the compounds of this word have had far greater note. Valerianus, the adoptive name, was borne by Publius Sicinius Valerianus, that unhappy persecuting emperor who ended his career as a stepping-stone to Shahpoor. Saint Valerianus was Bishop of Auxerre, and though properly Valérien in French, Valerian in English, was probably the patron of the Waleran, or Galeran, occurring in the middle ages, chiefly among the Luxembourgs, Counts of St. Pol.
Valentinianus has been continued by the Welsh in the form of Balawn.
Valentinus was a Roman priest, who is said to have endeavoured to give a Christian signification to the old custom of drawing lots in honour of Juno Februata, and thus fixed his own name and festival to the curious fashion prevailing all over England and France, of either the choice of a “true Valentine,” or of receiving as such the first person of the opposite sex encountered on that morning.
These customs increased the popularity of Valentine and Valentina, the latter being more probably used as the feminine of the former, than as the name of an obscure martyr who died under Diocletian.
Valentina Visconti was the wife of the Duke of Orleans, brother of Charles VI. of France, and as one of the bright lights in a corrupt court, merited that her name should have become more permanent than it has been.
The Slavonic contractions of the masculine are curious. Lower Lusatia makes it Batyn, Tyno, Bal, and Balk; Lithuanian, Wallinsch; and Hungary, Balint.[62]
It is not easy to separate the idea of Virginia from _virgo_ (a virgin), especially since Sir Walter Raleigh gave that name to his American colony in honour of the Virgin Queen, and it was probably under this impression that Virginie was made by Bernardin de St. Pierre, the heroine of his tropical Arcadian romance, which reigned supreme over French, English, and German imaginations of a certain calibre, and rendered Virginie triumphant in France, and a name of sentiment in England. Nay, had the true Virginia lived and died a couple of centuries earlier, her story would have passed for a myth expressed in her appellation; but the fact is, that she derived it from a good old plebeian gens, who formerly spelt themselves Verginius, thus connecting themselves with _ver_ (the spring), Persian _behar_, Eolic Βεαρ, the old Greek Γέαρ, and with all its kindred of _virga_ (a rod, or green bough), _vireo_ (to flourish), _viridis_ (green); and again with the more remote descendants of these words in modern Europe—_vert_, _verdure_, _il vero_, &c. Virginio was a name in the Orsini family, but otherwise it has not been kept up.
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Footnote 62:
Liddell and Scott; Pott; Facciolati; Smith; Arnold; Jones, _Welsh Sketches_; Brand, _Popular Antiquities_; Michaelis.
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