Friends, Romans, Countryman.  Lend Me Your Names...

Cause I got no time for nothing else



A friend of mine recently had a child (and if she reads this she'll have to forgive 

me for recylcling), and decided on another name from amongst the pantheon of Roman

emperors.



Not a bad idea.  It's much more imaginative than naming your kid Tyler or whatever.

And it's got some sophistication...which could border on pretension depending on 

which way you go.  You don't want to put to much pressure on a kid who may not be 

able to live up or live down a name like Caracalla.



So I thought, in case any of you wanted take any other imperial names, I thought I'd

run down my thoughts on them. (Note from the middle: I'm not even halfway through 

writing them and I'm sick of this. You'll love it.)



The Names of the Roman Emperors:



1. Julius (Technicality) : So he wasn't really emperor.  Anyhow, though I think 

you could avoid comparisons to the Mall Food Court chain Orange Julius, it still

seems these days to be the name one would bestow upon a circus gorilla.



2. Augustus/Octavius: Too obvious.  He was probably the best, and best known.  You

steal from greatness, you're giving them something to really live up to.



3. Tiberius: Like the man the name's too grim, and sounds too much like a water-borne

illness: "The whole town was killed by the well water.  It was infected with the 

Tiberius bacteria."



4. Gaius "Caligula":  Have to look at both.  Gaius seems like a pretentious

way of naming your kid with the weirdly anonymonus name of Guy (unless you happened

to have a last name like Smiley).  And though I love the way Caligula rolls off 

the tongue and the fact that it means "Little Boot" sounds very childlike,

it's still guilt by association.  Besides, no one knows the man anymore, but plenty

of people remember the pseudo-arthouse porn movie.



5. Claudius: Not anything necessarily too wrong with the name...but it does have

that "get your ass kicked in the schoolyard" kind of ring to it.



6. Nero: Each way I turn, there's almost something offensive about this name.



7. Galba: Sounds too much like the name of a Star Wars alien.



8. Otho: Only if you plan on raising an evil henchman.  "These are my sons 

Otho and Oddjob."



9. Vitellius: Sounds like an infomercial health product that comes on right after

Body by Jake.  No dice.



10. Vespasian: I can almost recommend this one.  I don't know how much ass-kicking

it would earn.  I think it would confuse kids more than anything.  You can kind 

of yell it in that perfect annoyed mom tone.



11.  Titus:  A name I have always liked, like Billy Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus.

Unfortunatley I also kind of think Roman underwear: "Maximus, you've soiled

you're Titus Whitus." (Ok it was a weak stretch.)



12.  Domatian:  Rare breed of extinct dog.



13.  Nerva: Wrong.  All wrong.  It either sounds like something out of anatomy book

or some Chico Marx bad Italian accent joke.



14.  Trajan:  Another name I could get behind, and that I can't think of a joke 

for it above condom humor.



15. Hadrian:  Not bad.  Seems like a misspelling of Adrian, an entirely overused

name.



16. Antoninus: For some reason I think inflamed red and purple baboon butt every

time I read this name.  "The male rubs agains the tree bark, enflaming his antoninus

to attract females."



17. Marcus Aurelius:  Here's a man I respect.  Loved The Meditations.  You'd have

to use both names though.  Marcus isn't enough, but the Aurelius might be too much.



18. Commodus:  You can say it with authority, but this name is a life of toilet 

jokes waiting to happen.



19. Pertinax: Your alternative to Viagra...or another one of those Herpes medication

ads.



20. Didius:  Sounds like a nonsense sound used in some Uncle Remus song.



21. Septimius Severus: There's a joke in there somewhere, but I'll just say....Uh....

no.



22. Caracalla:  Here's another good mouth mover without all the bad connotations

of Caligula, but it sounds more like a place than a name: "Welcome to Caracalla

Stadium, the home for your Los Angeles Panthers!"



23.  Geta:  Again with the space alien names...and a chick space alien name at that.



24.  Macrinus:  Again with the biology name: "He sprained his Macrinus Majora."



25.  Diadumenianus:  All obvious problems aside, can you even imagine being able

to genuinely sound mad at the kid by the time you got all of that out?



26. Elagabalus: No.  But his other name "Heliogabalus" I can almost get

behind.  The 'gabalus' bit is kind of what makes it sound cool, but also kind of 

ruins it.



27.  Alexander Severus:  You'd have to use the whole thing all the time.  No Alex's.

It would have to be "Alexander Severus, you don't get a bite of dessert until

you finish your pot roast."



28.  Thrax:  Not so much a Star Wars alien as the name of the evil cosmic super 

villain:  "Now you shall taste the wrath of THRAX!"



29.  Pupeinus:  Great for the kid for the first few years.  What kid wouldn't love

being known as his two favorite things: his "Poo" and his "Penis".



30.  Balbinus:  A medical adjective for something swollen (ex. the lymph node had

become balbinus.).



31. Gordianus:  You'd never get away from being accused of trying to make the name

Gordon sound important and cool again.  It'd never work.



32. Philippus "Arabicus":  Definite no to Philippus, but were it not for the climate

of the time, I could almost go for Arabicus (The Arab).  Sounds hardcore. He'd never

need a nickname.  It's built in.



33.  Decius:  Pretty lame, imperially speaking.



34.  Trebonianus:  Sounds like a heavy tuba music move: "After the third cord,

you'll have to come in sharp with this trebonianus."



35.  Aemilianus:  This name I could get behind.  It's got street cred straight up,

and class at the same time.  Like a tough but suave variation of Emilio.  Pretty

much anything with an "Ae" is hip to me.



36.  Valerianus:  There's no real joke here, but the male variation of Valerie doesn't

sound tough enough to me.



37. Gallienus: Two sounds that just don't go together.



38.  Claudius II "Gothicus":  We've covered Claudius, but Gothicus?  C'mon.

You gonna put the kid in black diapers and Robert Smith makeup right away?  Besides,

you can't tease that fine baby hair up enough.



39.  Quintillus:  High marks to anyone who bestows upon their child a name starting

with 'Q'.



40.  Aurelianus:  Good last name...not so sure about a first name.



41.  Tacitus:  Too adjective sounding, in the ankle biting dog that won't f*ck off

kind of way.



42.  Florianus:  If Otho is the evil henchman, this is the total sissy.  You can't

put flowers in a man's name.



43.  Probus:  Do I even have to go there?  Thank God, good taste prevails.



44. Carus:  Pronounced like 'Carey', it would pretty much suck.  Pronounced like

'car' without a hard sound, it would rule with an iron fist.



45.  Numerianus:  Nerd alert.  Hand the kid a slide ruler on the way out of the 

womb.



46. Carinus:  Sounds wimpy compared to Carus.



47.  Diocletian: Mouthful name, but not without a certain cool.  Say is with me 

"Dio-cle-tian."  See what I mean.



48. Galerius:  Well, it sure beats Gallienus, but that's not exactly tough to do.



49.  Maximinus:  Kind of cool, but sounds like a living contradiction.  All and 

nothing.  Then again, I kinda like that.



50.  Maximianus: One extra letter is all it takes to eff it up.



51. Constantius I "Chlorus":  Does this guy sound constipated with some

horrible disease or is it just me?



52. Flavius:  That's got Roman gigolo written all over it.



53. Maxentius:  All these names with 'Max' in them and so few of them sound really

cool.



54. Licinius: The biological name for some kind of creeping vine.



55. Constantinus:  There's like twenty of these guys in a row with this name.  Now

the traditional Constantine sounds damn cool but awfully heavy handed, but with the

'tinus' at the end...Well sing it with me: "It's Istanbul, not Constantinus..."



56. Constans:  Doesn't work, besides no one wants to be the male version of Constance.



57.  Magnentius:  Another super villain, or a kind of lava flow.



58. Julianus:  Must've been the true fall of the empire when all the emperors had

such girly sounding names.



59: Jovianus (Jovian): I don't know which way to go with this one:  The Gravity 

of a Wise God or Sir Laughs-a-Lot.  I like it though, I like it.



60. Valentinian:  "Gigolo, table for 40 in champagne room."

 

61.  Gratianus:  Somewhere between really friendly, and hellatiously annoying.



62.  Valens:  If it wasn't for a life of LaBamba jokes, I could almost dig this 

name.



63.  Eugenius:  Definite get your ass kicked name, but depending on how the kid 

turned out in the smarts department, it'd either be really fitting or sadly ironic.



64. Theodosius:  Beats Theodore for originality, but not much else.



65.  Arcadius:  It is the video game world after all.  Is your kid the next pinball

wizard?



66. St. Marcianus:  Too much 'Marcy' in there, but it you got to keep the Saint 

part at the begining, it could be hip.  (And for girls, this guy's wife was named

Pulcheria, which even saying makes my naughty bits feel unclean.)



67. Honorius:  Not a fan of 'H' names generally.  Somewhere between honor and horny.

Could work out.



68. Petronius Maximus:  Together, it sounds like 'major boner.'  "Gaius man, Lucretia

bent over and I was sporting a petronius maximus."



69.  Avitus:  Not bad, except that it sounds like the name of Conan's buddy.



70.  Majorianus:  Too much like Marjorie, Drum Major, or Margarine?  You be the 

judge.



71. Libius Severus:  Again?  Libby?



72. Anthemius: The Roman master of the power ballad.  He would be ancient Rome's

answer to Poison or Whitesnake.



73. Olybrius:  Kinda cool. Kinda cool.



74. Glycerius:  The major component in some explosive.  No go.



75. Julius Nepos: If it was Julius Necros, you'd have another cool super villain.



76. Leo:  Name's gone trashy.



77. Zeno: Super Villain



78. Basiliscus:  Unlike Caracalla, this actually is a building turned into a name.



79. Anastasius:  For the last one, before the Byzantines, it's not bad.  I'd never

name my kid that, but it's not bad.



Then again, I skimmed the Byzantines, and the only one I really like was Phocas.

That's a pretty strong name.



In the end, choose wisely, if you don't want a beat down beat up kid.



Cheers.