Message: "Use of PRISCA and PRISCILLA prior to the woman in the bible"

Use of PRISCA and PRISCILLA prior to the woman in the bible

by Andy ;—) (guest)

9/19/2005, 8:56 AM

I started googling, but once more found that I'm not really good at this and gave up after a while (155 000 more entries to go). So this is my question:
How popular was PRISCA (or PRISCILLA) in Rome or elsewhere, before a woman of that name was mentioned in the bible? I found a few Romans by the name of PRISCUS, but they lived in the 1st cent. or later. No PRISCA though …

#bible

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- chazda +3

9/19/2005, 5:22 PM

My googling says that Priscus is originally a cognomen, and cognomina weren't documented until about 100 BCE. Prisca presumably would have appeared at any time a cognomen was passed to a daughter patronymically (I don't know if cognomina were used for women or not).

I'm sure someone else can give you better info, I really know barely anything about the subject - but I was interested, and that's what I came up with.

- chazda

This message was edited 9/19/2005, 9:54 PM

- Andy ;—) (guest)

10/5/2005, 6:43 AM

Thanx alot!

- Rene +1

9/20/2005, 10:29 AM

As I understood after googling as well cognomina were not used by *normal* people until around 100 BCE.

Here is a list of Roman senators that show the first senator with the cognomen Priscus already in the 5th century BC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Republican_Roman_Consuls

And here is an interesting article about Roman naming practices that says essentially the same regarding the first occurence of Priscus:
http://www.sca.org/heraldry/laurel/names/roman/index.html

But regarding the point in time when the female form of the cognomen was first used as a given name: No luck...
Rene www.AboutNames.ch

- Andy ;—) (guest)

10/5/2005, 6:43 AM

Danke, René!

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