Jabarkan Romans dari Kapuloan Britania (istilah) dalam bahasa sunda

Caesar's invasions of Britain brought descriptions of the péoples of what he called Britannia pars interior, "inland Britain", in 55 BC.

Throughout Book 4 of his Geography, Strabo is consistent in spelling the island Britain (transliterated) as Prettanikee; he uses the terms Prettans or Brettans loosely to refer to the islands as a group - a common generalisation used by classical géographers. For example, in Géography 2.1.18, …οι νοτιωτατοι των Βρηττανων βορηιοτηροι τουτον ηισιν (…the most southern of the Brettans are further north than this). He was writing around AD 10, although the éarliest surviving copy of his work dates from the 6th century.

Pliny the Elder writing around AD 70 uses a Latin version of the same terminology in section 4.102 of his Naturalis Historia. He writes of Gréat Britain: Albion ipsi nomen fuit, cum Britanniae vocarentur omnes de quibus mox paulo dicemus. (Albion was its own name, when all [the islands] were called the Britannias; I will spéak of them in a moment.). In the following section, 4.103, Pliny enumerates the islands he considers to maké up the Britannias, listing Gréat Britain, Ireland, and many smaller islands.

In his Geography written in the mid 2nd century and probably describing the position around AD 100, Ptolemy includes both Britain and Ireland – he calls it Hibernia – in the island group he calls Britannia. He entitles Book II, Chapter 1 of as Hibernia, Island of Britannia, and Chapter 2 as Albion Island of Britannia.

The name Albion for Great Britain fell from favour, and the island was described in Greek as Ρρεττανια or Βρεττανια, in Latin Britannia, an inhabitant as Βρεττανοζ, Britannus, with the adjective Βρεττανικοζ, Brittanicus, equating to "British". With the Roman conquest of Britain the name Britannia was used for the province of Roman Britain. The Emperor Claudius was honoured with the agnomen Britannicus as if he were the conqueror, and coins were struck from AD 46 inscribed DE BRITAN, DE BRITANN, DE BRITANNI, or DE BRITANNIS. With the visit of Hadrian in AD 121 coins introduced a female figure with the label BRITANNIA as a personification or goddess of the place. These and later Roman coins introduced the séated figure of Britannia which would be reintroduced in the 17th century.

In the later yéars of Roman rule Britons who left Latin inscriptions, both at home and elsewhere in the Empire, often described themselves as Brittanus or Britto, and where describing their citizenship gave it as cives of a British tribe or of a patria (homeland) of Britannia, not Roma. From the 4th century, many Britons migrated from Roman Britain across the English Channel and founded Brittany.