What’s behind the name Robert Prevost chose?

Cardinal Robert Prevost has been elected pope and will be known as Pope Leo XIV.

The 69-year-old is the first American to become as pontiff and will lead members of the Catholic Church’s global community of 1.4bn people.

Born in Chicago, he is seen as a reformer and worked for many years as a missionary in Peru before being made an archbishop there.

He also has Peruvian nationality and is fondly remembered as a figure who worked with marginalised communities and helped build bridges in the local Church.

One of the first acts of a new pope is to choose a new name, changing their baptismal one.

The decision is part of a longstanding tradition but it has not always been like that.

For more than 500 years, popes used their own names.

This then changed to symbolic names in order to simplify their given names or to refer to previous pontiffs.

Over the years, popes have often chosen the names of their immediate or distant predecessors out of respect or admiration and to signal the desire to follow in their footsteps and continue the most relevant pontificates.

For example, Pope Francis said his name honoured St Francis of Assisi, and that he was inspired by his Brazilian friend Cardinal Claudio Hummes.

The new Pope has not yet specified why he has decided to be known as Pope Leo XIV.

There could be many reasons for it, but the name Leo has been used by many popes over the years.

Pope Leo I, also known as St Leo the Great, was pontiff between 440 and 461 AD.

He was the 45th pope in history and became known for his commitment to peace.

According to legend, the miraculous apparition of Saints Peter and Paul during the meeting between Pope Leo I and Attila the king of the Huns in 452 AD made the latter desist from invading Italy.

The scene was then depicted by Raphael in a fresco.

The last pope to choose the name Leo was Pope Leo XIII, an Italian whose baptismal name was Vincenzo Gioacchino Pecci.

Elected in 1878, he was the 256th occupant of the throne of St Peter and led the Catholic Church until his death in 1903.

He is remembered as a pope who was dedicated to social policies and social justice.

He is particularly known for issuing an encyclical – a letter sent to bishops of the Church – called “Rerum Novarum”, a Latin expression which means “Of New Things”.

The encyclical included topics such as workers’ rights and social justice.

Leo is among some of the most popular papal names.

The most commonly used name has been John, first chosen in 523 by Saint John I, Pope and martyr.

The last pope to choose this name was Italian Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, elected Pope John XXIII in 1958, who was proclaimed Saint by Pope Francis in 2014.