She was named in honor of her late paternal aunt Annia Cornificia Faustina.

Cornificia Faustina was born and raised in Rome and later married the African Roman politician Marcus Petronius Sura Mamertinus, who served as consul in 182.

[citation needed] Her brother Commodus succeeded her father as emperor and, sometime between 190 and 192, he ordered the deaths of her husband, her son, her brother-in-law and her sister-in-law's family.

Cornificia survived the political executions of Commodus and later married Lucius Didius Marinus, a powerful Roman noble of equestrian rank who served as Procurator in various provinces.

In 212, when she was in her fifties, Caracalla ordered her death and that of her son,[1] thus eliminating the last surviving child of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Younger.