A Completely Trivial and Pointless Post About Regnal Names of Heads of State

The former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio is being inaugurated as Pope Francis tomorrow, and people still can't used to calling him simply Francis, not Francis I. The ordinal Roman numeral one is not part of the new pope's official name, with Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi explaining that he will be referred to as Francis I if there is ever a Pope Francis II.

To settle the quarrel:

The ordinal Roman numeral is normally not used in reference to a pope or monarch whose name has not been born by any successors because it's obviously not necessary. The nineteenth-century female monarch of Great Britain is called Queen Victoria, not Queen Victoria I, because there's been no Victoria II yet. Elizabeth I wasn't called that until the ascension of Elizabeth II in 1952. So the Roman numeral one is mostly for historical reference. But that does not mean it's never used to refer to a pope or monarch who has not or had not had any successors of the same name. When Cardinal Albino Luciani was elected pope in 1978, he took the names of his two immediate predecessors, Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, and so became John Paul (leading snarky Beatles fans to ask what was wrong with George Ringo). It was he who added the Roman numeral one to his name, officially becoming John Paul I, as if to signify that while he would take after John XXIII in one way and Paul VI in another, he would have his own distinct papacy as the first pope after the closing of the Second Vatican Council. Sadly, his biggest distinction was dying a month after assuming the papacy. Perhaps it was prophetic that he called himself John Paul I before anyone could have known there would soon be a John Paul II. Similarly, when Juan Carlos of Bourbon became king of Spain after the death of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, he chose both of his Christian names as his regnal name and added the Roman numeral one, becoming King Juan Carlos I. Previous Spanish kings had been named Juan (John) or Carlos (Charles), but not both. (And just for the record, there's no Juan Carlos II in the immediate future; the king's son and heir to the throne, Felipe, will become King Philip VI.)

Perhaps it was the fact that both John Paul I had and Juan Carlos I has double names that prompted the use of an unnecessary "I" appending said double names, although the single-named Czar Paul I of Russia, son of Catherine the Great, officially used the ordinal Roman numeral one. And there was never a Czar Paul II.

Here are some other fun facts about regnal names to amuse your friends with:

There have been 21, not 23, popes named John. John XVI was an antipope, and there was no John XX owing to a thirteenth-century clerical error in the Vatican. By clerical error, I mean an error from a cleric - namely, Pope John XXI, who took that name thinking he was correcting a mistake in the count. In fact, he made one.

There may have been no John XX, but there was a Louis XVII. In between the overthrow of King Louis XVI of France in 1792 due to the French Revolution and the restoration of the House of Bourbon under Louis XVIII in 1815 (after the fall of Napoleon), Prince Louis, the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette was recognized by French royalists as the legitimate monarch, but he died at the age of ten.

There was a Napoleon I, and a Napoleon III. What about Napoleon II? There was one, and he was Napoleon III's cousin and the original Napoleon's son, but when Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated as Emperor of the French (after losing the Battle of Waterloo in 1815) in favor of his son, Napoleon II was not recognized as legitimate, and the Bourbon dynasty was returned to the power.

Prince Charles has supposedly indicated that if when he becomes king of Great Britain, he will reign as George VII (George is his fourth given name) in honor of his maternal grandfather, King George VI, rather than as Charles III. After all, the only two English kings named Charles were of the discredited House of Stuart. The first Charles was publicly beheaded for being such a tyrant, and the second Charles was a sybarite; Charles II's namesake great-nephew, Bonnie Prince Charlie, led an unsuccessful insurrection against the House of Hanover to gain the British throne.

King George VI and his grandfather, King Edward VII, were both named Albert, after the earlier king's father. But though Edward's mother, Queen Victoria I (oops, excuse me, no Roman numeral necessary), wanted him to reign as Albert Edward, he loathed the double name and wanted to render Albert off limits for British kings as a memorial to his father. George VI honored his grandfather's wish and used the name George (as with his grandson Charles, George was his fourth given name) as his regnal name to symbolize continuity with his own father, George V.

The last English king to be named Edward was Edward VIII. But there have actually been eleven, not eight, English kings named Edward (more English kings have born the name Edward than any other). The first three kings had nominal, not ordinal, suffixes; Edward the Elder, Edward the Martyr, and Edward the Confessor. All reigned before 1066, when William the Conqueror (also known as William I) took over England and established Norman rule after defeating Harold of Wessex at the Battle of Hastings.

And finally . . .

Pope Francis is the first pontiff to take an unprecedented single name since Pope Lando, who reigned from 913 to 914. Alas, there has never been a Lando II, which is why I didn't call him Lando I. As for the last pope to take an unprecedented single name that has since been taken again, that would be Marinus I, who reigned from 882 to 884. The name was taken once more - by Marinus II, who reigned from 942 to 946.

Okay, this post was a colossal waste of time . . .. :-p