The gens Aviena, occasionally written Avienia, was an obscure plebeian family at ancient Rome. Hardly any members of this gens are mentioned in history, but a number of Avieni are known from inscriptions.
The nomen Avienus belongs to a class of names formed using the suffix -enus, typically derived from other gentilicia. There was a gens Avia, also known primarily from inscriptions, derived from avus, grandfather.[1]
The main praenomina of the Avieni were Sextus and Titus, with a few other names receiving occasional use, including Gaius, Publius, and Quintus. All of these were very common throughout Roman history. One family of the Avieni at Ostia used Sextus alone, and were differentiated by their cognomina, a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the "fossilization" of a praenomen, which became common in imperial times.[2]
The Avieni do not appear to have been divided into distinct stirpes, or branches, identified by hereditary surnames. There was a family of this name at Ostia, where at least some of them were part of the shipwrights' guild, but the members of this family used distinctive personal cognomina.