Etymology of the name of Julius Caesar

Using the Latin alphabet as it existed in the day of Julius Caesar (100 BC – 44 BC) (i.e., without lower case letters, "J", or "U"), Caesar's name is properly rendered "GAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR" (the form "CAIVS" is also attested and is interchangeable with the more common "GAIVS"). It is often seen abbreviated to "C. IVLIVS CAESAR". (The letterform "Æ" is a ligature, which is often encountered in Latin inscriptions where it was used to save space, and is nothing more than the letters "ae".) In classical Latin, it is pronounced "GUY-us YOOL-ee-uhs KUY-sahr", where "guy" and "kuy" rhyme with the English "sky" — IPA . In Ecclesiastical Latin, the familiar part "Caesar" is pronounced "CHAY-zahr" — IPA ['tʃe:sar].

Roman nomenclature is somewhat different from the modern English form. Gaius, Iulius, and Caesar are Caesar's praenomen, nomen, cognomen, respectively. In modern usage, his full surname would be "Gaius Iulius", while Caesar has roughly the same status as the 'additional last names' prevalent in many Spanish or aristocratic families (i.e., Spanish Dictator Francisco Franco y Bahamonde, Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar Lopez). In Ancient Rome, it denoted Gaius Iulius as the member of the 'Caesarian' branch of the 'Iulian' family. The cognomen "Caesar" means "hairy" and indicates that this branch of the family was conspicuous for having fine heads of hair (hence Caesar's later sensitivity about his ironically thinning hair). His grand-nephew, Gaius Octavius duly took Caesar's name as "Gaius Iulius Caesar Octavianus" upon his posthumous adoption in 44 BC, and the name became fused with the imperial dignity; in this sense it is preserved in the German and Russian words Kaiser and Tsar, both of which refer to an emperor.

A very early folk etymology for the name "Caesar" is that it is comes from the Latin phrase a matre caeso (meaning "cut out of his mother"), which refers to the popular story that Caesar was born by Caesarean section. This story is certainly untrue, as birth by section was until modern times only possible when the mother was dying; Caesar's mother was still alive when he reached adulthood. Besides, the family name "Caesar" had already been in the family for generations before Julius Caesar's birth.

Other derivations suggest that the root of the name may not be of Latin origin; the Rosetta Stone contains a hieroglyphic cartouche transcribed as "k-e-s-r-s" and supposed to be related to the Latin sense. Another suggested foreign derivation is the Persian Kasrá (pl. Akásirah), the title of four great dynasties of Persian kings, via Ahasuerus (i.e., Khshayarsha, better known as Xerxes I, the grandson of Cyrus the Great); eventual relationship between kisri and kasrá is seen as less meaningful, mostly referred to later times (Sassanides). Another possible meaning of the name "Caesar" is seizure, since many people in Caesar's family possessed epilepsy, or more notibly Atonic Seizures .

In subsequent times, "Caesar" entered Eurasian folklore as Geser of Rūm or Khrom, Geser Khan, or, much later, Geser of Ling (after a province of eastern Tibet). Geser became a war god especially popular with central Asian military societies, known to have spread from the Seljuk Turks and Sassanian Persians to Tibetan, Mongolian, Manchu and eventually Chinese mythologies by the time of the Qing dynasty.

See also

Latin spelling and pronunciation