Papia gens
The gens Papia was a plebeian family at ancient Rome. Members of this gens are first mentioned at the time of the Samnite Wars, but do not appear at Rome until the final century of the Republic. Marcus Papius Mutilus was the only member of the family to attain the consulship, which he held in AD 9. Origin. The Papii were probably of Samnite origin, and several of this family appear in history in connection with the Samnite Wars and the Social War. Chase lists "Papius" among those gentilicia which were of Oscan derivation, in this case from  the Oscan cognomen "Papus", of which another cognomen, "Papilus", appears to be a cognate. However, the Papii themselves maintained that they had come from Lanuvium, an ancient city of Latium, and a coin of the gens alludes to one of the founding myths of Lavinium, a town with which Lanuvium was frequently confounded. Praenomina. The Papii who appear in ancient historians and achieved prominence at Rome bore the praenomina "Gaius", "Lucius", and "Marcus", the three most common names throughout Roman history. From the filiation of the consul Mutilus, we know that the Papii had also used "Numerius", a much less  common name, frequently although not exclusively associated with families of Samnite origin. Branches and cognomina. Among the cognomina borne by the Papii at Rome were "Celsus", "Mutilus", and "Faustus". "Celsus" would have been given to someone who was conspicuously tall, while "Mutilus" refers to someone maimed or deformed. "Faustus", meaning "fortunate" or "lucky", was an old praenomen that came into widespread use as a surname during imperial times.