What is "septimus"

Septimus or Septimius may refer to:

Septimus is a Latin praenomen, or personal name. It was never particularly common at Rome, but it gave rise to the patronymic gens Septimia. The feminine form is Septima. The name was not regularly abbreviated.

The praenomen Septimus was quite rare at Rome, but it seems to have been more popular in rural Italy. It was certainly used by the gentes Marcia and Modia, and must have been used by the ancestors of gens Septimia. Chase cites two inscriptions in which it occurs after the nomen of a woman, in the place usually occupied by the cognomen. However, Septimus is not otherwise attested as a cognomen in either family, suggesting that the order of names was reversed, and that the praenomen was used by the Aebutii and Casperii. To these families, Kajava adds one instance from gens Aemilia and perhaps one from gens Cincia.