Fulvia gens
The gens Fulvia, originally Foulvia, was one of the most illustrious plebeian families at ancient Rome. Members of this gens first came to prominence during the middle Republic; the first to attain the consulship was Lucius Fulvius Curvus in 322 BC. From that time, the Fulvii were active in the politics of the Roman state, and gained a reputation for excellent military leaders. Origin. The nomen "Fulvius" is evidently of Latin origin, and is derived from the cognomen "Fulvus", originally designating someone with yellowish or golden-brown hair. Cicero reports that the Fulvii originally came to Rome from  Tusculum, where some of them remained in his era. According to tradition, they obtained their "sacra" from Hercules after the completion of his twelve labours. By the latter part of the fourth century BC, they had joined the nobiles through the patronage of the Fabii, who supported the successful candidacy of Lucius Fulvius Curvus for the consulship. Praenomina. The earliest branch of the Fulvii used the praenomina "Lucius", "Marcus", and "Quintus", which they occasionally supplemented with other names, including "Gaius", "Gnaeus", and "Servius". "Lucius" disappears early, and was not used by the later Fulvii. The Fulvii Centumali mentioned in history  bore "Gnaeus" and "Marcus" exclusively, while the Flacci depended on "Marcus" and "Quintus", supplemented by "Gnaeus", "Servius", and "Gaius". Fulvii with other praenomina occur toward the end of the Republic. Branches and cognomina. The Fulvii of the Republic bore a variety of cognomina, including "Bambalio", "Centumalus", "Curvus", "Flaccus", "Gillo", "Nobilior", "Paetinus", and "Veratius" or "Neratius". "Curvus", which means "bent" or "crooked," is the first cognomen of the Fulvii to occur in history, and belongs to a large class of surnames derived from a person's physical characteristics. Members of this family subsequently bore the surnames "Paetinus" and "Nobilior", which displaced  Curvus. "Paetinus", derived from "Paetus", was a common surname originally referring to someone with a slight cast in the eye. Pliny the Elder mentions it alongside "Strabo", which also indicated a defect of vision, but Horace indicates that "Paetus" describes a lesser distortion than "Strabo", giving as an example a father referring to his son as "Paetus", although he was called "Strabo", since his eyesight was not that poor. The slight distortion indicated by "Paetus" was even considered endearing, and it was an epithet of Venus, with much the same meaning as the modern proverb, "love is blind". As the  cognomen of "Curvus" was superseded by that of "Paetinus", so the latter was in turn superseded by "Nobilior", meaning "very noble". This name seems to have been first assumed by the consul of 255 BC, perhaps with the implication that he was more noble than the other Fulvii; his descendants dropped the name of "Paetinus". "Centumalus" is a cognomen of obscure meaning. From the filiation of Gnaeus Fulvius Maximus Centumalus, the consul of 298 BC, and the first of this surname, it appears probable that he was the brother of Marcus Fulvius Paetinus, the consul of the preceding year, in  which case the Centumali were also descended from the Fulvii Curvi. "Flaccus", meaning "flabby", or "flop-eared", was the name of a prominent family of the Fulvia gens, which first appears in history around the beginning of the First Punic War. They were presumably descended from the same family as the other Fulvii of the Republic, but the exact manner of the relationship is unclear, unless perhaps they were descended from a younger son of Marcus Fulvius Curvus Paetinus, consul in 305 BC. The surname "Bambalio", belonging to one of the Fulvii of Tusculum, alluded to his tendency to stammer . To this list, some scholars append "Nacca", or "Natta", a fuller, based on a Lucius Natta, supposedly the brother-in-law of Publius Clodius Pulcher. Cicero mentions this Natta on two occasions, but does not mention his gentile name. Servius calls him Pinarius Natta, in a passage of uncertain genuineness, but the only known wife of Clodius was Fulvia; thus it has been speculated that her brother could have been Lucius Fulvius Natta, although that surname is otherwise unknown in the Fulvia gens. Ronald Syme argued that it was possible that Natta was a maternal half-brother of Fulvia, from  her an earlier marriage of her mother to a Pinarius Natta. Drumann, however, provides reason to suppose that Clodius was married twice, and that his first wife was Pinaria; in which case Natta was not the brother of Fulvia.