The Greek proper name Nereus refers to a Roman Christian greeted by Paul in Romans 16:15. The name derives from the Greek sea-deity Nereus, common in Roman households, suggesting this may be a freed slave or a person from a household with Greco-Roman background.
Romans 16 is often overlooked as a list of names, but it is a profound theological document. Paul greets at least 26 named individuals (and several unnamed groups), most of them laborers in the gospel. Nereus and his sister are greeted simply as saints — members of 'the household of Aristobulus' and 'the household of Narcissus.' The list reveals that the Roman church was largely composed of people from the lower social strata — freedmen, slaves, women, workers. The same Jesus who called fishermen and tax collectors continued to call the overlooked and unnamed. That Nereus bears a pagan deity's name and is called 'saint' (set-apart one) by Paul is itself a gospel sermon: identity in Christ supersedes all prior names and origins.