Question about a Roman name

[D B Campbell]

I will really appreciate if someone know when this name appeared to be used first in Rome.

It was the name of Septimius Severus' father, so probably traditional in his family. Birley says that it was originally a slave name -- in that case, a link with the Getae is likely. (Slaves often had an "ethnic" name, like Syrus, "the Syrian".)

Caracalla forbid the use of Get/Geta/Getae, names that remind about his brother

Perhaps based on Dio 67(68).5: "if anyone so much as wrote the name Geta or even uttered it, he was immediately put to death. Hence the poets no longer used it even in comedies." The ancients were, of course, aware of the ethnic parallel. The writer of the Historia Augusta Vita Getae (Life of Antoninus Geta, 6.6) plays on Geticus Maximus, quasi Gothicus ("... that is to say, Gothicus"). Also Vita Caracallae (Life of Caracalla, 10.6): Gothi Getae dicerentur ("the Goths are called Getae").

It would be interesting to find the first instance of Gothi/Gothicus in Latin literature.