Can you name the most common papal name for each letter A-Z?

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Common Pope Names A-Z Quiz

Rating:	Report a mistake
Created by: TimeAndTide -
Contributed: October 9th, 2009
Published: November 19th, 2009
Category: Religion
Plays: 37,176

Tags: Letter Quizzes, a-z, common, papal, Editor Pick, pope

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	TimeAndTide:	Oct 11th, 2009 at 02:00 GMT	6 points
	Thanks spongebob. "Papal" means "of or relating to a pope or to the papacy". Or if you prefer analogies: papal : pope :: presidential : president.

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	HPZ:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 17:50 GMT	10 points
	"Hmm... a pope name that starts with B, and there's 16 of them. Nope, can't think of any. I guess I'll give up." facepalm

	ProfundoQ:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 18:02 GMT	3 points
	Wrong about 5 for Martin. There were only 3. Martin I,II and V (no III or IV for some reason). That's still the most M's though.

	btroup1:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 18:05 GMT	-1 points
	Spelled the S one with a V. Dag nabbit! 12/20 isn't bad for a Protestant boy.

	swellwrench:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 18:18 GMT	2 points
	@ProfundoQ: There were indeed 5 Martins, but for some reason Martin II and Martin III also went by "Marinus I" and "Marinus II" respectively, which may be the source of your confusion

	BamaRainbow:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 18:31 GMT	3 points
	@ProfundoQ: Actually, you're wrong about the numbers. There was no Martin II or III, but there was a Martin IV (who was actually Martin II). The confusion originated because of a pair of Popes named Marinus. At the time of Simon de Brion's (or de Brie) election to the Papacy in 1281, there was an error in the official Papal records regarding the Popes Marinus (the Latin version of Martin is "Martinus") so that when Simon chose "Martinus" for his Papal name, the official record showed there to be 3 earlier Popes named "Martinus."

	Nicktroptopolis:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 18:36 GMT	3 points
	There should definitely be another Pope Zosimus...

BamaRainbow:

Nov 19th, 2009 at 18:51 GMT

3 points

I'm honestly surprised that there haven't been any Popes with names beginning with "O", "Q" or "X". I am less surprised that there aren't any "K", "W" or "Y" names (since Latin didn't make use of those letters), so I guess we'll have to wait for a truly forward-looking Pope before we'll see the likes of Pope Kevin, Pope William or Pope Yukio.

	Jelle:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 19:07 GMT	10 points
	Should accept latin names.

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	beatrixkiddo:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 19:20 GMT	1 point
	nice game - very simple idea.

	Isstvan:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 19:28 GMT	1 point
	Stupid Pope R----. Served less than three months before being deposed.

	micah:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 19:36 GMT	2 points
	There have actually only been 21 Pope Johns--see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_(numbering). I seem to recall similar shenanigans involving some of the other common names, too...

	bigal4:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 19:43 GMT	3 points
	We should get a quiz on Holy Roman Emperors or Byzantine rulers or Egyptian Pharoahs next.

	TimeAndTide:	Nov 19th, 2009 at 20:05 GMT	5 points
	Interesting comments about the skipped numbers. I should've done my homework better. Either that or relabel the "How many?" column as "Highest Number" and use Roman numerals. This was actually one of the first sporcle quizzes I made. I chose it because I wanted to do an "alphabet" quiz on a topical area that hadn't been done before. This was the first thing that came to mind. Which is odd, because I'm Jewish. Hmm ...

Letter	Papal Name	How many?
L		13
M		5
N		5
P		12
R		1
S		9
T		2
U		8
V		3
Z		1

	kingstony:	Nov 20th, 2009 at 02:12 GMT	1 point
	No Pope Kevin?

	cheesyjon:	Nov 20th, 2009 at 13:53 GMT	1 point
	i got Felix by accident!

	quizzesarenice:	Nov 21st, 2009 at 06:51 GMT	5 points
	Some of these names, which I'm sure were cool back in the day, sound funny now. Pope Eugene would be a huge nerd, Pope Felix would be a cat-lover, Pope Leo would be a tie-dyed hippy who always asked new cardinals their astrological sign, Pope Theodore would be a chipmunk and Pope Urban would be covered with bling - lots of huge jewel studded crosses and such. Which would make him look like every other pope.

	Esme:	Nov 29th, 2009 at 04:33 GMT	3 points
	And to think that I went through all that hassle trying to remember how to spell "Zephyrinus."

	icing:	Nov 29th, 2009 at 05:08 GMT	2 points
	Great quiz - I got all of the most popular ones, but was totally at a loss for the lesser-known ones. I kept thinking they would have Biblical names, but those don't seem to appear much at all, is there a reason for that?

	daHOOK:	Jan 28th, 2010 at 23:33 GMT	2 points
	Before I checked the numbers I tried Lando.

	percyjackson517:	Feb 24th, 2010 at 02:09 GMT	-4 points
	wat does papal mean???

	GeoExpert:	Mar 31st, 2010 at 23:11 GMT	2 points
	⩓of or pertaining to the pope

	sporclover:	Nov 3rd, 2010 at 16:55 GMT	1 point
	any particular reason for the omission of Deusdedit?

	Stran:	Nov 13th, 2010 at 16:33 GMT	1 point
	Eugene - seriously? :)

	Tony_A:	Sep 2nd, 2011 at 17:23 GMT	1 point
	Eugene is derived from Evangelist, which is Greek for one who spreads good news.

	Mackadal:	Oct 20th, 2011 at 15:40 GMT	1 point
	I was surprised at how "normal" a lot of these names are. You would not be hard pressed to find a guy named Alexander, Stephen or Zachary. I was expecting more names of the Innocent, Pious, Urban type.

	dorer002:	Jan 25th, 2012 at 22:16 GMT	1 point
	Ugh, I spent a lot of time wondering whether I had misspelled "Ignatius" since I KNEW that just HAD to be the I name.