What Were the Names of the 12 Apostles? All Twelve, Their Other Names and Matthias

Jesus chose twelve men from among his followers, and three Gospels list the same twelve. They are Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, James and John the sons of Zebedee, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, whose place was later taken by Matthias.

Mark tells us why they were chosen, in a single line. “He goeth up into a mountain, and calleth unto him whom he would: and they came unto him. And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach” (Mark 3:13–14). First, to be with him. Then, to be sent. Everything we know about these twelve men happens somewhere between “with him” and “send them forth.”

The lists are in Matthew 10:2–4, Mark 3:16–19 and Luke 6:13–16, with the eleven who were left named again in Acts 1:13. Several of the twelve go by more than one name, and the second column gathers them, so a reader who meets “Levi” or “Lebbaeus” can see who is meant:

Apostle	Also called	Where we meet him
Simon Peter	Cephas, “a stone”	Confesses “Thou art the Christ” (Matthew 16:16)
Andrew	None in Scripture	Brings Simon to Jesus (John 1:40–42)
James, son of Zebedee	Boanerges, “sons of thunder”	Killed by Herod with the sword (Acts 12:2)
John, son of Zebedee	Boanerges, with his brother	On the mountain of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1)
Philip	None in Scripture	Tells Nathanael, “Come and see” (John 1:46)
Bartholomew	Probably Nathanael	Called “an Israelite indeed” (John 1:47)
Thomas	Didymus, the twin	“My Lord and my God” (John 20:28)
Matthew	Levi; “the publican”	Called from the tax office (Matthew 9:9)
James, son of Alphaeus	None in Scripture	Named only in the lists
Thaddaeus	Lebbaeus; Judas “of James”	Asks Jesus a question at the supper (John 14:22)
Simon	The Canaanite; Zelotes, the Zealot	Named only in the lists
Judas Iscariot	None in Scripture	Betrays Jesus (Matthew 26:14–16)
Matthias	None in Scripture	Chosen by lot to take Judas’s place (Acts 1:26)

At least four were fishermen. Jesus found Simon and Andrew “casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers,” and James and John “in the ship mending their nets,” and to the first two he said, “Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men” (Mark 1:16–20). Matthew was a tax collector, “sitting at the receipt of custom,” when he heard the words “Follow me. And he arose, and followed him” (Matthew 9:9). Of the others’ trades the Gospels say nothing.

Some carried more than one name, and the Gospel writers did not always use the same one. Jesus gave some of the names himself. To Simon he said, “thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone” (John 1:42), and Peter plays on the Greek word for rock, as Cephas does in Aramaic. James and John “he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). We can hear the thunder when they ask whether they should “command fire to come down from heaven” on a Samaritan village that would not receive Jesus, and he “turned, and rebuked them” (Luke 9:54–55).

The other double names come from comparing the lists. The tenth apostle is “Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus” in Matthew 10:3, “Thaddaeus” in Mark and “Judas the brother of James” in the King James Version of Luke 6:16. There the Greek says only “Judas of James.” The King James translators printed “the brother” in italics as their own supplied words, and most modern translations supply “son of James” instead. John is careful to tell him apart from the traitor: “Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot” (John 14:22). The tax collector is Matthew in Matthew’s Gospel and “Levi the son of Alphaeus” in Mark 2:14. Simon is “the Canaanite” in Matthew and Mark and “Simon called Zelotes” in Luke. These are one title in two languages: the word behind “Canaanite” is Aramaic for “zealot,” and the HELPS Word-studies note at Bible Hub explains that Simon bore it “because he was an adherent of the Zealots.”

Bartholomew is a family name, “son of Tolmai.” He appears in the three Gospel lists and in Acts 1:13, but never in the Gospel of John, and John tells instead of Nathanael, whom Philip brought to Jesus (John 1:45–49). Because Philip and Bartholomew stand side by side in the three Gospel lists, many readers have taken Bartholomew and Nathanael to be one man. Scripture never says so, and the table marks him “probably.” Thomas is called “Didymus,” the Greek for twin, three times (John 11:16, 20:24 and 21:2).

Each of the three lists begins with Simon Peter and ends with Judas Iscariot. Matthew says it outright: “The first, Simon, who is called Peter” (Matthew 10:2). Between the two the order moves a little. Matthew lists the twelve in pairs, “Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew,” and it may echo the way Jesus sent them out, “by two and two” (Mark 6:7).

The number answers to the twelve tribes of Israel. Jesus tells them, “ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28), and in John’s vision of the new Jerusalem “the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Revelation 21:14). As Israel had twelve tribes, the people gathered around Jesus would have twelve apostles at its foundation.

That is why the number had to be made whole again after Judas. Before Pentecost the believers chose between two men who had been with them “all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John,” because one of them must be “ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.” They prayed, cast lots, “and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles” (Acts 1:21–26).

A disciple is a learner; an apostle is one who is sent. The Greek mathetes means a pupil, and apostolos a messenger, “one sent on a mission.” Jesus had many disciples, and from them he chose the twelve: “he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles” (Luke 6:13). In John 6, when “many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him,” Jesus turned to the twelve: “Will ye also go away?” Peter answered for them all: “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:66–68).

Later the New Testament calls others apostles too: “the apostles, Barnabas and Paul” (Acts 14:14). The longer answer is in apostles vs disciples.

Peter, James and John. Three times Jesus took these three with him when the others stayed behind. At the house of Jairus “he suffered no man to follow him, save Peter, and James, and John the brother of James,” and they watched him take a dead girl by the hand and say, “Damsel, I say unto thee, arise” (Mark 5:37–41). On the mountain they saw him transfigured, “his face did shine as the sun,” and heard the voice from the cloud: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him” (Matthew 17:1–5).

The third time was Gethsemane. “He taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy,” and he asked them to watch. Three times he came back and found them sleeping. “Simon, sleepest thou? couldest not thou watch one hour?” (Mark 14:33–37). The men who had seen his glory could not stay awake for his sorrow.

Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve. He went to the chief priests and asked, “What will ye give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver” (Matthew 26:15). All twelve were at the Last Supper: “in the evening he cometh with the twelve,” and there Jesus told them, “It is one of the twelve, that dippeth with me in the dish” (Mark 14:17–20). Afterwards Judas brought the money back, saying, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood,” and “went and hanged himself” (Matthew 27:4–5).

The Bible records the deaths of only two of the twelve: James, whom Herod “killed … with the sword” (Acts 12:1–2), and Judas. Jesus told Peter that “when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands,” and John adds that he spoke “signifying by what death he should glorify God” (John 21:18–19). Everything else comes from later Christian writers. What Scripture says is set out in does the Bible record how the apostles died?, and the traditions for each apostle, with their sources, are in how did the 12 apostles die?

That the church stands on them, and that their office as shepherds goes on in the bishops. Ephesians tells believers that they “are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Ephesians 2:20). The Catechism of the Catholic Church adds that one part of their office cannot be handed on, “to be the chosen witnesses of the Lord’s Resurrection and so the foundation stones of the Church,” while their charge of shepherding the church is “destined to be exercised without interruption by the sacred order of bishops” (paragraphs 860 and 862).

Jesus gave the whole of his mission into the hands of twelve ordinary men. On the night of his arrest “they all forsook him, and fled” (Mark 14:50). Then the risen Christ “was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve” (1 Corinthians 15:5), and the men who had run were sent. Soon the rulers in Jerusalem, who had no reason to flatter them, were looking at Peter and John and seeing “unlearned and ignorant men.” The order of Mark’s line has not changed for us: first we are called to be with him, and then we are sent. Those rulers saw it too. “They marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

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• Apostles vs disciples: what is the difference?
• How did the 12 apostles die?
• Does the Bible record how the apostles died? Only James and Judas
• Who was Judas Iscariot?
• How old were the disciples of Jesus?
• Andrew, the forgotten apostle