It’s no coincidence that so many Jesuit institutions (and quite a few non-Jesuit ones too !) have taken the name of ‘Xavier’, specially those in South Asia. Flipping through the catalogues of South Asia’s Jesuit Provinces reveals that 66 institutions in India and Nepal bear the name of ‘Xavier’ – the next runner-up ‘Loyola’ has only 48 ! (with a few ‘St Ignatius’s thrown in for good measure) The largest number of Xaviers (11) is in Gujarat, and predictably so. Curiously, there are no ‘St Francises’ as equivalents of Xavier – Francis being almost entirely designated as the saint of Assisi.

Still, there are some places where there is no Jesuit institution named after Xavier — Karnataka, Kerala and Sri Lanka.