The earliest family of the plebeian Marcii bore the surname of "Rutilus", meaning "reddish", probably signifying that the first of this family had red hair. It is through this family that the Marcii emerged from obscurity, only a few years after the passage of the "lex Licinia Sextia" opened the consulship to the plebeians. The son of Gaius Marcius Rutilus, the first plebeian censor, was himself censor twice, and took the name "Censorinus", which was thereafter passed down in this family for several centuries.