§56. There is even greater variation in the names of persons who had passed from one family into another by adoption. Some took the additional name (§52) from the _stirps_ instead of from the _gēns_, that is, from the _cognōmen_ instead of from the _nōmen_. A son of Marcus Claudius Marcellus was adopted by a certain Publius Cornelius Lentulus and ought to have been called _Pūblius Cornēlius Lentulus Claudiānus_; he took instead the name _Pūblius Cornēlius Lentulus Marcellīnus_, and this name descended to his children. The confusion in this direction is well illustrated by the name of the famous Marcus Junius Brutus. A few years before Caesar fell by his hand, Brutus, as we usually call him, was adopted by his mother's brother, Quintus Servilius Caepio, and ought to have been called _Quīntus Servīlius Caepiō Iūniānus_. For some reason unknown to us he retained his own _cognōmen_, and even his close friend Cicero seems scarcely to know what to call him. Sometimes he writes of him as _Quīntus Caepiō Brūtus_, sometimes as _Mārcus Brūtus_, sometimes simply as _Brūtus_. The great scholar of the first century, Asconius, calls him _Mārcus Caepiō_. Finally it may be noticed that late in the Empire we find a man struggling under the load of forty names. §57. Names of Women.--No very satisfactory account of the names of women can be given, because it is impossible to discover any system in the choice and arrangement of those that have come down to us. It may be said in general that the threefold name was unknown in the best days of the Republic, and that _praenōmina_ were rare and when used were not abbreviated. We find such _praenōmina_ as _Paulla_ and _Vibia_ (the masculine forms of which early disappeared), _Gāia_, _Lūcia_, and _Pūblia_, and it is probable that the daughter took these from her father. More common were the adjectives _Maxuma_ and _Minor_, and the numerals _Secunda_ and _Tertia_, but these unlike the corresponding names of men seem always to have denoted the place of the bearer among a group of sisters. It was more usual for the unmarried woman to be called by her father's _nōmen_ in its feminine form, _Tullia_, _Cornēlia_, with the addition of her father's _cognōmen_ in the genitive case, _Caecilia Metellī_, followed later by the letter _f_ (=_filia_) to mark the relationship. Sometimes she used her mother's _nōmen_ after her father's. The married woman, if she passed into her husband's hand (_manus_, §35) by the ancient patrician ceremony, originally took his _nōmen_, just as an adopted son took the name of the family into which he passed, but it can not be shown that the rule was universally or even usually observed. Under the later forms of marriage she retained her maiden name. In the time of the Empire we find the threefold name for women in general use, with the same riotous confusion in selection and arrangement as prevailed in the case of the names of men at the same time.