Well the Caesar has the same name as his father. Gaius Julius Caesar was his father’s name as well. His father was a Senator and brother in law to Gaius Marius.

So you may be thinking why his father was named after it? Well you have to look at the Roman name and the common three part name. We’ll use Gaius Julius Caesar. The Gaius is what we would consider the first name. Julius is equivalent to our last name. The third name was used most commonly as a name that identified what particular branch of family you were. It was also used as a personal identifier, and I’ll talk about that here in a second.

So the Caesar was named after his father. The Caesar in his name identified that he was in the Caesarian branch of the Julia family. The idea that they were named after the surgery, or the other way around, is a myth without any evidence.

Back to personal identifiers. Some Romans only had two names and maybe got a third. Other Romans had four names. Originally starting with three and getting another one added for some sort of recognition. An example of one of these would be the famous Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus. The Africanus meant “conqueror of Africa” and was obtained after he defeated Hannibal in the Second Punic War.

Sources:

Beard, Mary. (2015) SPQR. London, England. Liveright & Company Profile Books.

Duncan, Mike. (2017) A Storm Before The Storm. New York, New York. Public Affairs.