(04-18-2023, 09:57 AM)Mikkel Brennum Wrote: [ -> ]Hi guys - I need your help!
I am writing a historial fiction book and need a great name for the main chararacter.
He is a legionaire in the second legion, and were an active part of the roman invasion of Britain.
I want the character to be based on a real person, so can you point me in the direction where I can find an extensive list of the members of the legion?
You are more than welcome to come with great suggestions as well 
Thank you in advance,
Mikkel
We don't have any muster rolls or lists of soldiers for the legions that served in Britannia. The closest equivalent would be lists of men discharged from legions at particular times, of which we have a few from the 2nd century but none, I think, from the western provinces.
Your best bet would be to invent a character. Roman names might look confusing but (for the Principiate at least) they follow a fairly simple system. Most citizen soldiers would have three names - praenomen (Marcus, Lucius and Gaius were common), nomen (family name) and cognomen (denoting the branch of the family, or sometimes an individual within the family). So for example Marcus Valerius Calvus: Marcus of the Valerii family, named Calvus.
There are quite a few simple lists and examples of these names online; just look up 'Roman naming conventions' and you should find some to start with.
The best thing to do would be to look at Roman inscriptions from gravestones or official monuments, which often provide genuine individual names. This is a good searchable database of all known Latin inscriptions from the Roman era:
Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss / Slaby
It's a bit of a beast to use at first, but try putting
Britannia in the 'province' box and (for example)
centuri in 'search text 1' - you'll get a list of 641 inscriptions from Britain which mention centuries. Many of them are from soldiers or centurions, for example "C(aius) / Curiatius / Saturninus / |(centurio) leg(ionis) II Aug(ustae)", or by small units naming their commanding centurion, often in the nominative case (I think!). So for example "(Centuria) Flavi / Rufi / p(rimi) p(ili)" would identify the century commanded by the Primus Pilus, Flavius Rufus; this is from Caerleon so the legion is probably II Augusta. Note that Flavius Rufus would have a cognomen too, Marcus or whatever, but in this format this would often omitted.
Try changing the search terms around a bit and you'll get other results. Putting
legio instead of
centuri in the search box brings up some good ones. You can alter the date range as well to try and narrow down the results.
There aren't so many inscriptions from the earlier empire, unfortunately. There are plenty from the 2nd-3rd centuries though, and the names would be similiar. Some of the lists are immense.