Etymology

Inherited from Latin rōmānus (later modified into the modern form, român, to reflect the Latin etymology). As this now obsolete form of the word was mostly used before the language's orthographic reform and shifting of script to the current Latin-based one, it would have been represented mostly with the old Romanian Cyrillic alphabet. The sense of "serf" or "peasant" arose in what is now southern Romania as many of the common people came to be tied to the land as part of a feudal system; however, the nuance of relative social inferiority tied to the notion of romanus also seems to have appeared in some form as far back as Frankish law^[1] in Western Europe after the Germanic conquests, although it may be an independent or unrelated development.

Compare Aromanian armãn, Istro-Romanian rumăr; cf. also the Albanian rëmër ‎(“shepherd”), a borrowing from Proto-Romanian. Compare also the designations of some other Romance speakers for their languages, such as Romansch rumantsch, Old French romanz, as well as Ladin ladin, Ladino ladino. The Romanian word also has a neological doublet, roman, which was borrowed later.