Augustus — Meaning, Origin & Everything to Know

Drawn from Latin, Augustus means 'great, venerable, majestic' and has a character all its own. Because it rests on Latin rather than passing fashion, Augustus carries a sense of history that many parents look for. Augustus offers a son the idea of honour, dignity and high character, wrapped in a sound that works almost anywhere. Part of the draw of Augustus is that it feels current without being invented, and meaningful without being heavy.

What Does the Name Augustus Mean?

Augustus means 'great, venerable, majestic', a sense it draws straight from its Latin roots.

The early history of Augustus belongs to the Latin world, where 'great, venerable, majestic' was a quality worth naming a child for. As it travelled, Augustus kept its 'great, venerable, majestic' sense intact, handed down to honour relatives and express a hope for the child.

Today Augustus reads as approachable and contemporary, even though its meaning of 'great, venerable, majestic' is anything but new. The result is a name in Augustus that feels both usable and meaningful — its appeal in the 2020s in a nutshell.

Symbolically, Augustus leans toward honour, dignity and high character, with its Latin roots adding heritage to that idea.

Origin & Etymology of Augustus

Latin · Latin

Augustus comes from Latin, where it means 'great, venerable, majestic'. As Latin communities moved and mixed, Augustus travelled with them — sometimes keeping its spelling, sometimes adapting, but holding its meaning. Now Augustus works as both a nod to roots and a thoroughly usable everyday name.

Augustus holds a meaningful place in the Latin tradition, its sense of honour, dignity and high character tied to long-standing cultural values.

How Latin names are chosen

Rome gave a child its given name at the dies lustricus, a purification held on the eighth day for a girl and the ninth for a boy. The delay was deliberate: until the umbilical stump fell away the infant was not regarded as having a separate existence, and so had no claim on a name or a fate of its own. The ceremony washed the child, presented it at the lararium before the household gods, and ended in a family feast. The praenomen given that day was only the first of the tria nomina — praenomen, nomen, cognomen — the three-part structure that marks Roman naming out from almost everything around it.

How to Pronounce Augustus

AU-gus-tus — Break Augustus into AU-gus-tus and it falls into place. The stress usually falls on the first syllable, and the rest follows naturally.