How Popes Choose Their Names—and Why It Matters

A Name That Signals a Papacy

When white smoke rises from the Sistine Chapel chimney and a new pope steps onto the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica, one of the first things the world learns is the name he has chosen. It is not his birth name. Since 1555, every pope has adopted a new title upon election—a tradition that stretches back nearly 1,500 years and carries deep symbolic weight.

The choice is entirely personal. There are no written rules, no canon law, and no formal criteria governing how a pope picks his name. Yet the selection is never casual. It is widely understood as the new pontiff's first public statement—a signal of whom he intends to emulate and what priorities will define his reign.

How the Tradition Began

For the first five centuries of Christianity, popes simply kept their baptismal names. That changed in 533 AD, when a Roman priest named Mercurius was elected to the papacy. Uncomfortable bearing the name of a pagan god, he became John II—the first pope to adopt a new name, choosing to honor his martyred predecessor John I.

The practice became standard by the tenth century. In 983, Peter Canepanova was elected pope but chose the name John XIV rather than become Peter II, establishing an unwritten taboo that persists to this day. The last pope to keep his birth name was Marcellus II in 1555. Since then, every pontiff has selected a regnal name.

What Drives the Choice

Most popes pick the name of a predecessor whose legacy they wish to continue. According to The Washington Post, the selection often reflects a deliberate theological and political message to the Catholic world.

Some landmark examples illustrate the pattern:

• John Paul I (1978) combined the names of his two immediate predecessors, John XXIII and Paul VI, signaling continuity with the reforming Second Vatican Council. He was the first pope since Lando in 913 to introduce a wholly new papal name.
• Benedict XVI (2005) chose to honor both Benedict XV, a pope of peace during World War I, and Saint Benedict of Nursia, the father of Western monasticism.
• Francis (2013) became the first pope ever to take this name, honoring Saint Francis of Assisi and his life of poverty and humility—a clear signal of pastoral priorities.
• Leo XIV (2025) selected his name after Pope Leo XIII, who championed workers' rights during the Industrial Revolution, suggesting a focus on social justice.

The Most—and Least—Popular Names

John leads all papal names with 23 uses, followed by Gregory and Benedict (16 each), Clement (14), Innocent (13), and Pius (12). Together, these six names account for roughly half of all popes in history.

Meanwhile, common biblical names like Joseph, James, Andrew, and Luke have never been chosen. Scholars note these are perhaps considered too ordinary—or too closely associated with specific apostles—for the unique office of the papacy.

The Name No Pope Will Take

The most striking absence is Peter II. No pope has ever dared adopt the name of the apostle Christ chose as the first leader of his church. Catholic tradition holds that taking the name Peter would be seen as extraordinarily presumptuous—an implicit claim to stand alongside the original.

Superstition reinforces the taboo. The Prophecy of the Popes, attributed to the twelfth-century Saint Malachy, describes a final pope called Petrus Romanus—Peter the Roman—who will shepherd the church through its last days. Whether taken seriously or not, the prophecy has given the name an apocalyptic aura that no cardinal has been willing to test.

More Than a Name

In an institution that measures its history in millennia, the choice of a papal name is a rare moment of personal expression within rigid tradition. It connects the new pope to his predecessors, signals his vision to 1.3 billion Catholics, and occasionally—as with Francis or Leo XIV—announces that something new is about to begin.