Names.
The boys received the nomen, family name, on the ninth day after birth and girls on the eighth day. On such day the ceremony of purification took place, which was by sprinkling with a branch of olive or laurel dipped in water, the burning of incense, and the offering of sacrifice. The boy was given his prænomen when he put on the toga virilis at sixteen or seventeen and the girl when she was married. The wife at marriage took the nomen of her husband's family, but this was not often a change from her own family as usually marriages were between members of the same gens. In later times, when marriage did not mean so much, and divorces became frequent, the wife did not take her husband's nomen but she was known by the nomen of her father's gens.