 Many common nomina arose as patronymic surnames; for instance, the nomen "Marcius" was derived from the praenomen "Marcus", and originally signified "Marci filius", "son of Marcus".In the same way, "Sextius", "Publilius", and "Lucilius" arose from the praenomina "Sextus", "Publius", and "Lucius".This demonstrates that, much like later European surnames, the earliest nomina were not necessarily hereditary, but might be adopted and discarded at will, and changed from one generation to the next.