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In [[ancient Rome]] the '''''dies lustricus''''' ("day of [[Lustratio|lustration]]" or "purification day") was a traditional [[naming ceremony]] in which an infant was purified and given a ''[[praenomen]]'' ([[given name]]). This occurred on the eighth day for girls and the ninth day for boys, a difference [[Plutarch]] explains by noting that "it is a fact that the female grows up, and attains maturity and perfection before the male."<ref>[[Plutarch]], ''Roman Questions'' [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Roman_Questions*/E.html#ref233 102.]</ref> Until the umbilical cord fell off, typically on the seventh day, the baby was regarded as "more like a plant than an animal," as Plutarch expresses it.{{Efn|See also [[Aulus Gellius]], ''Attic Nights'' 16.16, citing Varro in saying that in the womb children are more like trees than a human being.}} The ceremony of the ''dies lustricus'' was thus postponed until the last tangible connection to the mother's body was dissolved, and the child was seen "as no longer forming part of the mother, and in this way as possessing an independent existence which justified its receiving a name of its own and therefore a fate of its own."<ref>Breemer and Waszink, "Fata Scribunda," p. 242.</ref> The day was celebrated with a family feast.<ref>Breemer and Waszink, "Fata Scribunda," p. 251.</ref> The [[List of Roman birth and childhood deities|childhood
On the ''dies lustricus'', the ''Fata Scribunda'' were invoked.<ref>Breemer and Waszink, "Fata Scribunda," p. 248.</ref> The "Written Fates" probably refers to a ceremonial writing down of the child's new name, perhaps in a family chronicle.<ref>Breemer and Waszink, "Fata Scribunda," p. 251.</ref> To the Romans, the giving of a name was as important as being born. The receiving of a ''praenomen'' inaugurated the child as an individual with its own fate.<ref>Breemer and Waszink, "Fata Scribunda," pp. 245, 250.</ref> A child's name may have been decided on before hand in the preceding days.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Infancy and Earliest Childhood in the Roman World: 'A Fragment of Time'|last=Carroll|first=Maureen|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2018|isbn=9780192524348|pages=?}}</ref> In rare instances children were given names before the ceremony, for example one child named Simplicius is recorded to have died the same day as he was born, possibly only living an hour.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Infancy and Earliest Childhood in the Roman World: 'A Fragment of Time'|last=Carroll|first=Maureen|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2018|isbn=9780192524348|pages=??}}</ref>
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