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The original was posted on /r/askhistorians by /u/Awesomeuser90 on 2023-08-07 19:44:59+00:00.

Popes took on a name of a previous pope for the most part, with a number to distinguish them.

I even see this trend in the Roman civilization, the republic definitely has magistrates known by their given name, even if it was the same as a predecessor. The Principate mostly had emperors known by a typical name without a number, and legally the Romans never abandoned the idea they were a res publica and even the Palaiologans didn’t use regnal numbers at the time but we use regnal names to distinguish the emperors starting around the Dominate period like Theodosius.

There are some exceptions like the Dutch Republic I suppose, but even many of their stadholders had colloquial names like William the Silent or William of Orange.

Why couldn’t someone like George Walker Bush be known as George the Second, and how did republics come to have such a different naming tradition?