The eldest branch of the Fabii bore the cognomen "Vibulanus", which may allude to an ancestral home of the gens. The surname "Ambustus", meaning "burnt", replaced "Vibulanus" at the end of the 5th century BC; the first of the Fabii to be called "Ambustus" was a descendant of the Vibulani. The most celebrated "stirps" of the Fabia gens, which bore the surname "Maximus", was in turn descended from the Fabii Ambusti. This family was famous for its statesmen and its military exploits, which lasted from the Samnite Wars, in the 4th century BC until the wars with the Germanic invaders of the 2nd century BC. Most, if not all of the later Fabii Maximi were descendants of Quintus Fabius Maximus Aemilianus, one of the Aemilii Paulli, who as a child was adopted into that illustrious family.