Names of the Popes

[Nelka]

Of the four Saints that wrote the Gospels there have been 20 Popes named after John but there has only been one Pope Mark and no Pope has ever called himself Matthew or Luke.

Is there a reason for this? I thought it was something like no Pope wanting to be Peter out of respect but there have been six Pope Paul’s.

Just a coincidence?

Thanks.

 

[Joe_5859]

I think it’s mostly a matter of a historical circumstance rather than something deliberate.

In the beginning, the popes didn’t change their name, but simply kept their birth name. The first pope John was really named John. Actually, it was Pope John II who was the first to select a different name and that was because his birth name was “Mercurius” (after the Roman god). Since his name was decidedly not Christian, he took on a new one. It wasn’t until the 10th or 11th century that choosing new names became the norm.

It’s not just the evangelists. Most of the apostles also do not have popes named after them.

Since popes began taking on different names, the only pope to ever take a completely new name is Pope Francis. All other popes who took on a name different from their birth name always chose the name of a previous pope (or in the case of Pope John Paul I, the names of two previous popes).

So it strikes me as more of an accident of history. In the first several centuries when popes kept their name, none of them had those particular names. And then once taking on a new name became the norm, the popes almost always chose from the names of previous popes. So the names of the other evangelists and apostles never made it into that pool of papal names.