What happened to the original Patrician families?

by david_tennants_hair

I noticed while looking at the wikipedia page on Patricians that some of the gens such as Claudia and Sulpicia list influential people belonging to those dynasties all the way up to the early medieval period. This gives me a few questions

Were the people in the 4th and 5th centuries with the names Sulpicius and Claudius actually descended from the ancient Sulpicians and Claudians? I thought Tiberius or Caligula or one of those early crazies had purged all the true patricians from the senate (and executed a lot of them).

If not, why did they have these names?

What happened to the Patrician families throughout the principate and dominate?

What was the role of these families in the 5th century?

lameskiana

Followup: Are there any people alive today with surnames that may be descended from Roman (especially Patrician) 'surnames'?

JHisterTheHistoryMr

Hey, I came across a couple previously-asked questions that I believe are relevant:

Are there any European families that still exist today that can trace their origins to the aristocracy/patrician families of the Roman Empire

Did any of the major ruling families of the Roman Empire survive the fall of Rome? Can any modern families trace their lineage back?

Both questions approach your question sort of backwards regarding the information you're looking for -- starting with European lineages and attempting to work their way back to the Roman Empire -- but there is a ton of discussion in there relating directly to what you're asking. The first question, in particular, is quite extensive.