Expert: Maria - 10/2/2007

Question
how do you spell Octavian in roman alphabet form.

Answer
Hello,

First of all the English name ‘Octavian’, which corresponds to Latin “Octavianus”, is spelled as in English, since English language, as well as almost all the European languages, uses the Roman / Latin alphabet which has 24 letters instead of the 26  English letters, as in Latin there are no J and  W .

The only one difference  I could  mention concerns the V / U as in capital letters the Romans wrote OCTAVIANVS, while in lower case letters they wrote Octauianus.

Therefore you should write  OCTAVIAN / Octauian.

This because originally the Romans  used   only the capital letter  V  which seems to be pronounced like W in English 'Wine' (See  VINVM , wine).
Later were introduced the small letters and then "V" continued  to be  capital letter, while "u" was small letter for the same sound, as  in Latin there was not  the sound  "V"  as in  English "Vase".

Best regards,
Maria
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Octavianus became the name of the first Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, after he was adopted by  Gaius Julius Caesar and renounced his own name Gaius Octavius.
The name Octavianus meant that he originally belonged to the ‘gens Octavia’, i.e. the family whose ancestor’s name was Octavius.