This occurs nine days after the birth of boys and the eighth after that of girls; the idea being not to name the child prematurely lest it die in first infancy. The ceremony takes place in the atrium. The mother cannot, perhaps, be present, but there is a general gathering of the near friends, kinsmen, clients, etc., before whom the nurse solemnly presents herself and then lays her little bundle of swaddling clothes at the feet of its father. With equal solemnity the father bends and takes up the infant and with his formal “lifting up” the whole company raises a shout of joy.[96] Henceforth, the babe is of undoubted legitimacy, a member of the family, entitled to the protection alike of the family lares and of the public law, and a new citizen of the Roman state. Then the father, turning to the company, if the child is a boy, announces in clear voice his prænomen, _e.g._, “Let the lad be called Marcus!” After these formalities are ended the kinsmen and also the favorite slaves rush forward and throw around the neck of the infant cords bearing little metal toys, tiny swords, axes, flowers, or even dolls, all called _crepudia_, from the manner in which they clank together. Most important of all, however, is the golden _bulla_, an elaborate locket containing charms, which the father himself hangs about the child’s neck. If the family is poor, one of painted leather may answer, but a bulla there must be. It will never be laid aside permanently until the proud day when the grown-up lad “assumes the manly toga,” or when the girl leaves her parents’ house as a bride. =161. The Roman Name: Its Intricacy.=--It is no slight thing, this matter of the Roman personal names, and they are far more complicated than are the Greek. Under the Republic names were so standardized among the upper families, that those of a young nobleman were practically determined the moment he touched the cradle. How many “Appii Claudii” figure in the history of the Commonwealth! Omitting technicalities, practically every Roman citizen then had three names: his _prænomen_, a personal designation something like the Christian “John” or “George,” his _nomen_, fixed on him by his _gens_ (special clan) such as Cornelius, Fabius, Julius, etc., and finally his _cognomen_, which marked the particular family of the gens to which his father belonged. Cæsar, Sulla, Cicero, Scipio, and the like were all cognomens corresponding closely to later-day surnames, and were anything but the individual property of certain famous holders of the same. Thus even a cognomen could have many bearers, and sometimes a second cognomen was added--such as Publius Cornelius Scipio _Nasica_.