§58. Names of Slaves.--Slaves had no more right to names of their own than they had to other property, but took such as their masters were pleased to give them, and even these did not descend to their children. In the simpler life of early times the slave was called _puer_, just as the word "boy" was once used in this country for slaves of any age. Until late in the Republic the slave was known only by this name corrupted to _por_ and affixed to the genitive of his master's first name: _Mārcipor_ (=_Mārcī puer_), "Marcus's slave." When slaves became numerous this simple form no longer sufficed to distinguish them, and they received individual names. These were usually foreign names, often denoting the nationality of the slave, sometimes, in mockery perhaps, the high-sounding appellations of eastern potentates, such names as Afer, Eleutheros, Pharnaces. By this time, too, the word _servus_ had supplanted _puer_. We find, therefore, that toward the end of the Republic the full name of a slave consisted of his individual name followed by the _nōmen_ and _praenōmen_ (the order is important) of his master and the word _servus_: _Pharnacēs Egnātiī Pūbliī servus_. When a slave passed from one master to another he took the _nōmen_ of the new master and added to it the _cognōmen_ of the old with the suffix _-ānus_: when Anna the slave of Maecenas became the property of Livia, she was called _Anna Līviae serva Maecēnātiāna_. [Illustration: FIGURE 9. TRAJAN] §59. Names of Freedmen.--The freedman regularly kept the individual name which he had had as a slave, and was given the _nōmen_ of his master with any _praenōmen_ the latter assigned him. Thus, Andronicus, the slave of Marcus Livius Salinator, became when freed _Lūcius Līvius Andronīcus_, the individual name coming last as a sort of _cognōmen_. It happened naturally that the master's _praenōmen_ was often given, especially to a favorite slave. The freedman of a woman took the name of her father, e.g., _Mārcus Līvius Augustae l Ismarus_; the letter _l_ stands for _lībertus_, and was inserted in all formal documents. Of course the master might disregard the regular form and give the freedman any name he pleased. Thus, when Cicero manumitted his slaves Tiro and Dionysius he called the former in strict accord with custom _Mārcus Tullius Tīrō_, but to the latter he gave his own _praenōmen_ and the _nōmen_ of his friend Titus Pomponius Atticus, the new name being _Mārcus Pomponius Dionysius_. The individual names (Pharnaces, Dionysius, etc.) were dropped by the descendants of freedmen, who were anxious with good reason to hide all traces of their mean descent.