Question: The recent papal election made me wonder: Why has no pope ever taken the name Peter II?
Answer: There have been about 16 popes whose birth or baptismal name was a form of Peter (Pietro, Pedro, and so on). All of them likely thought it would be too audacious, if not downright arrogant, to take the name of the first pope, St Peter the Apostle.
The first pope to change his name, after 55 predecessors, was John II in 533. He had been born with a pagan name, Mercurius, which he considered unsuitable for the Successor of Peter.
The first Peter to be elected pope was Pietro Canepanova in 983, who took the name John XIV. He was only the fourth pope in history to adopt a new name.
Then in 1009, another Peter — Pietro Martino Buccaporci, a Benedictine — was elected pope. He took the name Sergius IV, possibly with some relief, as he could finally shed his rather unflattering surname, which means “Pig’s Snout”.
From then on, every legitimate pope but Sergius’s immediate successor changed his name. That custom has deprived us of such delightfully colourful papal names as Pope Poppo, Ildebrando, Desiderio and Sinibaldo.
The last pope baptised as Pietro was Alexander VIII, elected in 1689.
For all that, however, there is no rule that would prevent a pope from taking the name Peter II. But it’s hard to imagine that such conceit would go down well.
Moreover, there’s a so-called prophecy, attributed to the 12th-century Irish bishop St Malachy, which claims that the final pope — the one who will preside over the destruction of Rome and the Last Judgment — will be named Peter.
While the “prophecy” is almost certainly a 16th-century forgery and in any case a superstition, it would take a bold pope indeed to tempt fate by assuming the name.
And then there’s the small irony that Peter wasn’t even the Apostle’s original name — he was born Shimon bar-Jonah. In the event, there has never been a Pope Simon either.
(Günther Simmermacher)
Published in the January 2026 issue of The Southern Cross magazine
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