A Brief History
On December 20, 217 AD, reigning Pope Saint Zephyrinus died, replaced by Callixtus I as his successor. Not only did “Z” as we will call him have a name that strikes us today as a bit unusual, his actual birth name was Zepheniah.
Digging Deeper
The names Zephyrinus and Callixtus are just not chosen by new popes often, especially in more recent years, but in the old days such names were probably not so uncommon. Zephyrinus was Pope from 199 to 217, and was considered a martyr even though he did not die in defense of the faith, given honorary status as a martyr because of the stressful times in which he was Pope. In 1969, the list of Catholic martyrs was revised and poor old Zephyrinus lost his status as a martyr. Zephyrinus was the only Pope among the first 31 to hold that position not to die as a martyr.
Some of the other nifty names of Popes you may not be familiar with among the 266 men that have held the job include the following, each of which is the only Pope by that name. Although the list could go on and on, due to space constraints we will stop at the end of the 5th Century. (Years in office before each name.)
76-88: Anacietus (155-166: similar, but not same name, Anicetus)
99-105: Evaristus
125-136: Telesphorus
136-140: Hyginus (probably the cleanest Pope of all)
166-174: Soter
174-189: Eleuterus
230-235: Pontian
235-236: Anterus
236-250: Fabian (named after a rock star?)
259-268: Dionysus (oddly named after a Greek God!)
275-283: Eutychian
311-314: Miltiades
352-366: Liberius
384-396: Siricius
417-418: Zosimus
461-468: Hilarious (this guy was, well, Hilarius!)
468-483: Simplifies (not a complicated guy)
For some reason, none of the 220 Popes that followed those listed here chose to recycle any of these names. Oddly enough, the current Pope, Pope Francis, is the first Pontiff to choose that name for his Papacy, considering that it is a not-uncommon name both now and many years ago and we have several Saints by that name.
Question for students (and subscribers): What are your favorite names of past Popes or ones you would like to see a future Pope adopt? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Duffy, Eamon. Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes. Yale University Press, 2015.
O’Malley SJ, John W. A History of the Popes: From Peter to the Present. Sheed & Ward, 2011.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="12463 https://www.historyandheadlines.com/?p=12463">24 Comments
I find it very interesting that Zephyrinus was the only Pope among the first 31 to hold that position not to die as a martyr. I never knew that many popes died as martyrs.
I did not realize that the idea of the Pope has been around for that long, I was shocked to find that out.
did you know if you say orange really slow it sound like gullible?
Again, names are an integral part of history. I love reading about individuals who have a cool name.
the information on zephyrinus was very interesting
I’m sure that there are a lot of current names that people of the time period discussed in this article would think are odd. It works both ways.
I think it is interesting how unique names were back in the day. But in today’s time people probably think that our names are weird.
Was there some sort of rule stating ones name had to end with an “S” because with only one of them not having it, I find that HIGHLY coincidental at best.
Who knew popes have been around this long.
Interesting one was named after a Greek God. The Greek mythology had a ton of influence on the world and this is a prime example of that.
I did not know one could be martyred that way. I thought who had to die for your faith. It is interesting to see that he was considered a martyred because of the hard times he dealt with as Pope.
I have to wonder what the reasoning was behind choosing some of these names.
Some very interesting names with a large variety of roots.
The timeline helped the organization of this article
I have always questioned how people come up with some of the names of their children. I feel as if these names are taken to a completely whole new level.
I really enjoyed the timeline in this article
the timeline is pretty interesting!
some of the popes names on the timeline where very “humorous”
There have been some unique pope names to say the least.
some of these pope names are just ridiculous
The timeline was very interesting to see.
I wonder where some people get such strange names for their children.
i never knew that popes get to choose to recycle names. I think they should all have their own original names.
How do people even come up with these names