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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;GinoLR, post: 24813867, member: 128351&quot;]In Rome you can change your name when you access to some form of supreme power. It&#039;s what the popes still do. The cardinal Jorge Bergoglio changed his name to pope Francis. The cardinal Karol Wojtyła changed his name to pope John Paul II. </p><p><br /></p><p>Caracalla&#039;s name was Lucius Septimius Bassianus. But his father L. Septimius Severus claimed to be the son of Marcus Aurelius and the brother of Commodus. It was possible in Rome, a form of adoption (he did not adopt a son, but a father). Because his son Bassianus was now Marcus Aurelius&#039; grandson, he changed his name to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, like his new &quot;grandfather&quot;. </p><p>But in the Roman army, it was like in modern armies, you could get a satirical nickname from your comrades. Caracalla wanted to be popular among the troops, thus he let them give him the nickname of <i>caracalla</i>, litterally &quot;short cloak&quot;, the <i>caraca</i> being the military cloak. He got this nickname because he was a short man. In a modern army he could have been called &quot;XS size&quot;. </p><p>This custom lasted very long. In the middle ages kings or dukes got the same kind of satirical nicknames from their men. In France we had Pepin le Bref (the short), Charles the Bald, Charles the Simple (the dumb), Louis VI the Fat, etc. Dukes of Normandy too : William the Bastard didn&#039;t sound well, he conquered England in 1066 so he was now called William the Conqueror, which sounds better. There was also William Longsword (that means he was very short and his sword attached to his belt touched the ground), or Robert Courteheuse (means &quot;short pants&quot;) for the same reason. In the early 19th c. the emperor Napoleon was called &quot;le Petit Caporal&quot; (the little corporal) or, when he changed his hairstyle in 1800 and had now short hair, &quot;le petit tondu&quot; (little shaved head). His size was actually average, but he looked short when he was with his grenadiers, selected for their tall size. </p><p><br /></p><p>For Elagabalus it was different. His real name was Sextus Varius Avitus Bassianus. He was the son of Caracalla&#039;s cousin Julia Soaemias and of her husband Sextus Varius Marcellus. But his grandmother Julia Maesa (Julia Domna&#039;s sister) proclaimed the boy was actually Caracalla&#039;s son. She changed his name to Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, like his pretended father. </p><p>This guy was not a military man, and he didn&#039;t get any military nickname. Because he was the high priest of the Arab god Elagabal, sarcastic historians later called him &quot;Elagabalus&quot; or &quot;Heliogabalus&quot;, by derision. But I think nobody during his (short) lifetime ever called him Elagabalus.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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