Where is Pope Joseph?

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The “Sleeping Saint Joeseph” thread brought the question to my mind, why has there not been a Pope Joseph? Is this out of respect to the Holy Family or could there be other reasons?
 
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I read that Pope John XXIII almost picked Joseph as name… But Joseph is one of those names like Peter that seems it should not be picked out of respect…

After all, after the blessing Virgin, St.Joseph is probably the top Saint there is…
 
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It’s simply because no Pope has ever chosen Joseph as his regnal name. Our Pope emeritus had Joseph as his baptismal name, but chose Benedict as his regnal name. Our present Pope was the first to adopt the name Francis (actually Franciscus). There was no particular reason no earlier Pope had used the name and we may well have a Pope Joseph in the future.
 
Pope John XXIII almost took the name Joseph from what I read. However, he decided to honor his own father by taking his father’s name of John (Giovanni) instead.
Rather a nice thing too since he kind of salvaged the Pope name of John out of the depths it had sunk into and been forgotten, for about 5 centuries.
 
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jimXroberts said:
It’s simply because no Pope has ever chosen Joseph as his regnal name.
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Don’t think that thought did not cross my mind, yet St. Joseph is one of the more popular Church names. I think it goes beyond that.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
Pope John XXIII almost took the name Joseph from what I read.
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That would mean he was using his own middle name as his papal name. The most recent pope to use his baptismal name, as far as I know, was Marcellus II, whose pontificate lasted for a few months in 1555.

If John XXIII had, in fact, reverted to the older custom of keeping his baptismal name, then his successors would have likely followed his example. Paul VI would have been Pope John Baptist, John Paul I would have been Pope Albinus, John Paul II would have been Pope Charles, Benedict XVI would have been another Pope Joseph, and we would now have a Pope George.
 
My guess is that there is/was an unwritten rule against taking his name, just like the unwritten rule against taking the name Peter.
 
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Yes, it is considered that it would be a form of egoism or self-importance, putting his own personal identity above the papacy. It would be lacking in Christian humility.
 
BartholomewB said:
If John XXIII had, in fact, reverted to the older custom of keeping his baptismal name, then his successors would have likely followed his example. Paul VI would have been Pope John Baptist, John Paul I would have been Pope Albinus, John Paul II would have been Pope Charles, Benedict XVI would have been another Pope Joseph, and we would now have a Pope George.
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That might actually be a plan. Regnal names are not at the essence of the papacy. It might even be seen by the modern world as more down-to-earth for future popes to use their first baptismal names instead of regnal names.

Still, though, the thought of a Pope Pius XIII is interesting. I have tried to watch The Young Pope, but so far I’m not feeling much love for it, I’m not much for episodic television — I use television primarily as a news and educational source. And the main character comes across as, quite frankly, just a little bit mentally unbalanced.
 
BartholomewB said:
Yes, it is considered that it would be a form of egoism or self-importance, putting his own personal identity above the papacy. It would be lacking in Christian humility.
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When did this thinking take root? It seems to me that the early Popes all used their own names. Peter arguably used a name other than the one his parents gave him, because Jesus had renamed him Peter, but other than that, I thought Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus etc were named Linus, Cletus, Clement and Sixtus.

Edited to add, looking at the historical list of Popes, it seems like the first Pope to pick a papal name other than his own (John II) didn’t come along till the 500s, and then there were only a couple more who didn’t take their own name (about three more who all took the name “John” as Pope) over the next 500 years. Around 1000, it seems to have become a regular thing to take some previous Pope’s name. Before that, if you had several Popes named Leo I, Leo II etc it’s because their given names all happened to be Leo.
 
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I’m not sure of all the details, but I believe that for the first 500 years or so, every pope kept his baptismal name. The first one to change his name was John II, as you say. His real name was Mercurius. He thought the name of a pagan god would be inappropriate for a pope. Then there was a later pope, though I don’t remember which one, whose real name was Peter (Petrus, Pietro) and he decided to change it because “Peter II” would sound presumptuous, as though he were proclaiming himself the equal of St. Peter.

 
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