 | This guideline documents an English Wikipedia naming convention. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page. |
There are about 5,000 citizens of ancient Rome about whom we have some biographical information, and for a variety of reasons, naming each one uniquely for articles is not straightforward. Even the most famous Romans can be problematic: Caesar usually means Julius Caesar, but this cognomen was later used by all Roman emperors. The problem is not unique to Wikipedia: the Oxford Classical Dictionary has an appendix of alternative names by which some Romans are known, while the Prosopographia Imperii Romani and Pauly-Wissowa use a numbering system.
This convention is intended to support the use of the most common name in English, to cover cases of ambiguity, and to provide guidance for obscure personages.