What's in a name? How popes pick their names, and other papal name oddities

More than you ever wanted to know about the history of pope names.

When Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected pope in 2013, he stepped out onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica with a shy wave and never-before-seen name to add to the papal roster: Francis.

It was the first time in over 1,000 years - since Pope Lando in 914 - that a pope had chosen a unique regnal name, different than all of his predecessors.

(While Pope John Paul I, who reigned as pope for a brief 33 days in 1978, was the first doubly-named pope, he named himself after his recent predecessors, Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI, so he doesn’t count, according to us).

The late Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, chose his papal name after St. Francis of Assisi, whom the pontiff admired for his simplicity and love of the poor and love of God’s creation. Since Francis’ death on April 21 — and with an upcoming conclave starting Wednesday — internet popewatchers have speculated about what might be the name chosen by a new pope.

The Pillar talked with experts in Church history and papal names about how popes choose their names and why, the papal name that will probably never be chosen, and other papal name trends and anomalies throughout history.

How do popes choose their names?

For the Supreme Pontiff - the ultimate earthly authority in the Church - there are no rules or laws from the Code of Canon Law governing how the pope chooses his name.

“There are very few rules for the man at the top, so they're allowed to choose what they want,” Joshua McManaway told The Pillar.

McManaway is assistant professor of the practice and program director at Notre Dame's McGrath Institute for Church Life, where he teaches a History of the Papacy class.

Generally, popes choose a name of a previous pope, or saint, whom they admire and want to imitate.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his first general audience as pope, said he chose the name after Pope Benedict XV, who was a peacemaker in Europe during World War I, and after St. Benedict of Norcia, the founder of the Benedictine order and co-patron saint of Europe.

Pope St. John Paul II chose his name to honor his immediate predecessor, Pope John Paul I, who died after just over a month in office. Blessed Pope John Paul I chose his name in order to honor two of his recent predecessors, Pope St. John XXIII and Pope St. Paul VI.

“John Paul I actually said, ‘I am John Paul the first, there will be another coming after me,’” according to Matt Sewell, the host of papal podcast Popecast, and author of the Popes in a Year newsletter, and the Today in Papal History newsletter.

And interestingly, unlike Pope Francis, who simply took the name ‘Francis,’ John Paul I called himself “the first.”

“So he prophesied that John Paul II was coming, and then died a month later.”

This One Rule

While it remains unwritten, there is one rule that all popes have abided by: nobody chooses the name “Peter.”

“I suspect it is humility or perhaps even because one does not want to compare oneself to the one pope we know Christ chose himself. That may be a bridge too far!” McManaway said.

“I would be shocked [if a pope chose Peter],” he said. “It is an unwritten rule; it would be fair game. But I think anyone would cause great scandal if they chose Peter II.”

“Paul is safe,” he added. “You’re allowed to choose Paul.”

But when did popes start choosing regnal names?

For the first 500 years of papal history, popes did not change their names. They just kept their birth names.

But that changed with Pope John II in 533, whose name at birth was Mercurio, after the Roman god Mercury.

“He thought it's probably not right to have a pope who has a Roman god name,” Sewell said.

“And so he thought, ‘Well, how about I just switch my name to John?’ And he was John II, because John the First had just been pope from 523 to 526,” Sewell said.

The mercurial Pope John II.

The name John was a fitting choice, McManaway noted, as John I had been imprisoned by the Ostrogothic King Theoderic for refusing to support the heresy of Arianism, which taught that Christ was human but not divine.

Already frail and in poor health when he went to prison, John died not long after and was considered a martyr for the faith, even though he was not directly killed by Theoderic.

Pope John II set the precedent for many popes after him to name themselves after a pope who had gone before them.

It’s the reason that the names of most of the apostles, or other popular Catholic male saints like Luke or Thomas are absent from the list of pope names, McManaway said.

Since popes have started taking regnal names, the top five most popular names have been John, Gregory, Benedict, Clement, and Innocent.

Popes have also stuck with male names, McManaway said, and have not selected female saint names like Mary, though that practice is seen among men in some religious orders.

The last pope to keep his name

Choosing a new regnal name did not immediately catch on with the popes following John II.

In fact, it wasn’t until the 11th century that choosing a regnal name became the norm, McManaway said.

By the 1500s, most popes were choosing new names upon their election.

But Pope Marcellus II in 1555 was the last pope to keep his birth name -- he was not naming himself after Pope Marcellus I, who also kept his birth name.

“Pride only hurts. It never helps.” — Marcellus II, probably.

Every pope since Marcellus II has chosen a new name upon election.

It’s a trend McManaway thinks will continue. Probably.

But “maybe if we would get a religious pope, like a Franciscan or Dominican, who had already changed their name [for religious life] and if they had a kind of suitably papal name already, they might [keep their religious name],” he speculated.

The pope who took his name from literature

Of course, not all popes neatly follow the trends of choosing names because of their predecessors.

Pope Pius II, who reigned from 1458 to1464, did not choose his name for Pius I, who came 1,300 years before him.

Instead, Pius II — who had been born Enea Silvio Bartolomeo Piccolomini — was an avid reader, and he selected his name from a character of one of his favorite poets, Virgil.

Pius II “ wrote a romance novel before he got elected, and he was very steeped in classic literature,” Sewell said.

“And so he took the name Pius …after Aeneas,” a mythical hero figure from the poem “The Aeneid” by the Roman poet Virgil.

“Virgil wrote a phrase referring to Aeneas in his story, as ‘pious Aeneas’, so he named himself Pius II, not in a nod to Pope Pius I, but as a nod to this [Roman poem],” Sewell said.

The very pious Pius II.

The pope who wanted to be called ‘Handsome’

Sure, the pope is the Supreme Pontiff. But in the 15th century, there was a pope who was told no about something critical — his name.

“The guy who would become Pope Julius II — who reigned from 1503 to 1513 — he originally asked to take the name Pope Formosus II,” McManaway said.

Pope Formosus I had kept his birth name, but as a chosen name, it seemed a bit strange for another pope.

“I don't know if you know Latin, but ‘formosus’ means handsome,” McManaway explained.

“And so Julius II thought of himself as being a terribly handsome fellow and wanted to broadcast it. And while there are technically no rules governing how folks choose their names, the cardinals of the 15th century were wise enough to say, ‘No, you cannot choose Pope Handsome.’”

Pope Julius II looks sad. Maybe because he couldn’t be Pope Handsome?

Twenty-three Johns, only twenty-one popes?

Ask most Catholics how many Popes have been named “John”, and they would likely say “23,” because of Pope John XXIII, who was elected in 1958.

But, count on an official list of papal names, and there are only 21 popes with the name John.

There are a couple of reasons for this -- rivaling anti-popes who chose the name John, and a simple clerical error.

“Pope John XX never existed,” Sewell said. Whether they had simply forgotten there had never been a John XX, or they misread the documents at the time, “it was a notational error.”

Plus, the official Vatican list also skips from Pope John XV to Pope John XVII, because Pope John XVI was an anti-pope.

There was also some confusion when Pope John XXIII, who had been born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, chose his name.

“So when he’s elected, Roncalli says ‘I want to be called John.’ The problem is…during the Western Schism, there were popes in Avignon, there were popes in Rome, and there were popes in Pisa. And eventually, in the 15th century, they…basically depose everybody and start clean with Pope Martin V,” McManaway said.

“But what's kind of weird is that the Church was hesitant to say which of the popes in those lineages were the true popes. You have multiple popes who were validly ordained, [and] validly selected by cardinals…and so the Church, as she often does, was happy to let sleeping dogs lie.”

But the Church was forced to rule on the status of the previous John XXIII when Roncalli chose the name “John.”

“And of course, because Roncalli got the name ‘John XXIII’ they came down on the side of the previous pope John XXIII having been an anti-pope. So (anti-pope John XXIII) was in papal limbo from the 15th century on, until they finally had to pronounce on it,” McManaway said.

What will the next pope’s name be?

Sewell said he likes to joke that a pope should choose the name Lando II, as a humorous nod to Lando Calrissian from the Star Wars films.

In fairness, Lando Calrissian already has a cope.

He said it would also be funny if (as internet jokesters have suggested) Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa were elected and took the name John XXIV, so that he could be “Papa John” like the U.S. pizza chain.

On a more serious note, Sewell said he would like to see some of the older papal names make a comeback.

“I think it would be cool if it was an obscure name, like Urban or Innocent, or even Stephen or Pius XIII,” he said, though after the character in the TV show “The Young Pope”, Pius XIII may not be a popular choice.

Admit it. Jude Law’s Pius XIII was cool. Kinda.

Interestingly, there was also an American priest named Lucian Pulvermacher who became a sedevacantist, and in October 1998 was elected “pope” by a small group of traditionalist Catholics in Montana. He took the name Pius XIII — though whose to say whether that bit of history would influence name-taking in the conclave.

Lucian Pulvermacher, left, already used the name Pius XIII.

Anyway, McManaway said that as a historian, he also tends to think about papal names from the past, but that it is really impossible to predict what the next pope will do.

“We just have no idea. I mean, it's so idiosyncratic. Who could have thought a pope was going to choose Francis? So it’ll be entirely contingent, I think, upon who it is that's it's elected, and what his own proclivities are, and what message he wants to send about his papacy.”