Gaius Julius Caesar (Ancient Greek: ΓΑΙΟΣ ΙΟΥΛΙΟΣ ΚΑΙΣΑΡ)[a] was a prominent name of the Gens Julia from Roman Republican times, borne by a number of figures, most notably by the general and dictator Gaius Julius Caesar.
(The letterform Æ is a ligature, which is often encountered in Latin inscriptions, where it was used to save space, and is nothing more than the letters "ae".)
Compare the Hungarian, Slavic and Turkish words for "king", forms of kral, all adapted from Karl, the personal name of Charlemagne.
[4] After his senatorial consecration as Divus Iulius in 42 BC, the dictator perpetuo bore the posthumous name Imperator Gaius Iulius Caesar Divus (IMP•C•IVLIVS•CAESAR•DIVVS, best translated as "Commander [and] God Gaius Julius Caesar"), which is mostly given as his official historical name.
Before the introduction of the letter 'G' into the Latin alphabet, i.e. before the censorship of Appius Claudius Caecus in 312 BC,[7] the name was only written as Caius.
Weinstock's argument however relies on a hypothetical intermediate form *Iovilus, and he stated himself that Iullus can't originally have been a theophoric name and could therefore only have become one at a secondary stage, after the Julians had established the identification of Iulus as their gentilician god Vediovis (also: Veiovis), who was a "young Iuppiter" himself.
Members of the Julian family later connected the name Iulus with ἰοβόλος ("the good archer") and ἴουλος ("the youth whose first beard is growing").
[17] This has however no etymological value and is only a retrofitting interpretation concerned with the earlier institution of the Vediovis-cult in Rome together with a statue of Iulus-Vediovis as a (possibly bearded) archer.
The praenomen Kaeso (or Caeso) was best known from the Quinctii and the Fabii, possibly derived from their ritual duty of striking with the goat-skin (februis caedere) at the luperci Quinctiales and the luperci Fabiani respectively, the Julians would then have argued that the name Caesar was identical to the Quinctian and Fabian Kaeso.