By the Republican era an throughout the Imperial era, a name in ancient Rome for a male citizen consisted of three parts (tria nomina): praenomen (given name), nomen (gentile) (name of the gens or clan) and cognomen (name of a family line within the gens). The nomen, and later, cognomen were virtually always hereditary. Women usually did not have the praenomen and agnomen (nickname), which were normally distinct and not necessarily hereditary (unless the parents chose to).