Revised as of 17 April 2021
You can read the full text of “The Travels of Marco Polo the Venetian here. I know, I know, you’re asking why you’d be interested.
Who knows, it might be useful for future reference for a story, but my primary interest right now is that Polo is his surname and the Venetian is his cognomen.
The real purpose behind this word confusion post, cognomen versus surname, is to satisfy my own curiosity. I am planning a sci-fi / time travel series in which the first book is set in Ancient Rome. And I have been confused with the Roman naming conventions.
Now, I know that nomen is the family or last name, the surname of a Roman while a cognomen is of Roman origin that began as a nickname, which has, sometimes, evolved into a surname.
Word Confusions…
…started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noir for you from either end.
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| Cognomen | Surname |
|---|---|
| Credit to: Apple Dictionary.com; Dictionary.com: cognomen; The Free Dictionaries: cognomen; Oxford Living Dictionaries: surname | |
Essex Cemetery, Tappahanock, Virginia, 38, by Talusss is under the CC BY-ND license, via VisualHunt. — Fat Man would be William’s cognomen. |
Philbey Family Gravestone by sludgegulper is under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license, via VisualHunt. — All four people buried here share the same surname. |
| Part of Grammar: | |
| Noun
Plural: cognomens, cognomina |
Noun; Verb, transitive
Plural for the noun and third person present verb: surnames |
| A surname
A familiar name for a person, often a shortened version of a person’s given name An extra personal name given to an ancient Roman citizen, functioning rather like a nickname and typically passed down from father to son A name, especially a descriptive nickname or epithet acquired through usage over a period of time
[Historical; Roman] The third and commonly the last name of a citizen of ancient Rome, indicating the person’s house or family. |
Noun: A hereditary name common to all members of a family, as distinct from a given name
Verb, transitive: Call by a surname |
| Examples: | |
| Joe’s mother would not use his cognomen and always called him Joseph.
“Henry’s cognomen was Slim. Swamp Fox was the cognomen bestowed on Marion by the British. “The cognomen was put last, and marked the family; as Cicero, Csar” (Dillaway). “In these parts I know only one person who carries that cognomen—one Charles Clancy” (Reid). The Roman tria nomina consists of praenomen, nomen, and cognomen, i.e., personal name, family name, and nickname. “Unlearn him his own cognomen, — teach him another name, — too late, too late” (Bulwer-Lytton). “Therefore, by the fourteenth century the ethnic derivation of a cognomen no longer serves as a reliable indicator of the ethnic background of its bearer, without additional contextual information” (Women). Caesar is the cognomen of Gaius Julius Caesar. |
Noun: There are the Smiths, the Joneses, the Wrights, the Lohs, the Carters, and well, I could go on forever and a day with last names. John Brown is a member of the Brown family. His mother’s maiden name was Franklin. By his successes there, he acquired the surname of the African. I care not what your surname may be. Men tend to refer to each other by their surnames while women use given names. Simeon of the pillar, by surname Stylites, was a Syriac ascetic saint who achieved notability for living 37 years on a small platform on top of a pillar near Aleppo in modern Syria. Verb, transitive: The cruel neighbor, surnamed Hao, did not regret his actions. The man I followed was surnamed Carter, and he was always very cheerful. The first in line, a boy surnamed Ip, said he got there at 7am. Compared with Wang, another student surnamed Peng is even luckier. A little over 10 years ago, this island was rented by two brothers surnamed Yang from Xiangshan County. |
| Derivatives: | |
| Adjective: cognominal Adverb: cognominally |
Adjective: unsurnamed Noun: surnamer |
| History of the Word: | |
| Latin, from co- (together with) + gnomen, nomen (name). | Middle English, as a partial translation of the Anglo-Norman French surnoun, suggested by the medieval Latin supernomen. |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan…which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them…and we’ll all benefit!
Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.
Resources Cited
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward. What Will He Do With It, Complete. Project Gutenberg, 2004. <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7671>.
Dillaway, Charles K. Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology For Classical Schools. 2nd ed. Project Gutenberg, 2007. <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20734>.
Reid, Mayne. The Death Shot BiblioBazaar, 2008. <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11839424-the-death-shot>.
Skillin, Marjorie E. and Robert M. Gay, eds. Words into Type. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc, 1974. p 453.
“Women Under Venetian Colonial Rule in the Early Renaissance: Observations on their economic activities.” Renaissance Quarterly. Humanities. The Free Library. 22 Mar 1998. Web. 28 Sept 2018. <https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Women+under+Venetian+colonial+rule+in+the+early+Renaissance%3A+…-a020602491>.
Pinterest Photo Credits:
Edward Teach, a.k.a., Black Beard, Walking the Plank, from the Pirates of the Spanish Main series (N19) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes (MET DP835032) courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and under the CC0 license, via Wikimedia Commons.
