In Ancient Roman naming conventions, how did the nomen and cognomen interact?

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XenophonTheAthenian

Not necessarily. /u/Astrogator has done an excellent job of explaining the tria nomina in the past, and he'd do a better job than I will of laying the convention out in detail, but cognomina were not necessarily exclusive to particular nomina. For example, Balbus was a cognomen of the gentes Lucilia, Acilia, Laelia, Lucilia, Cornelia, and a couple others.