The gens Fannia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome, which first appears in history during the second century BC.
The first member of this gens to attain the consulship was Gaius Fannius Strabo, in 161 BC.
[1] The nomen Fannius belongs to a large class of gentilicia that either originated at Rome, or cannot be shown to have come from anywhere else.
The only distinct family of the Fannia gens during the Republic bore the cognomen Strabo, originally given to someone given to squinting.
Other surnames occur under the Empire, including Quadratus, "square", and Caepio, an onion,[4][5] but these seem to have been personal names, since they do not appear to have been passed down to the descendants of the bearers.