Who suggested the word "Python" for the show's title?

John Cleese suggested the word “Python” for the show’s title.

The group considered several possible names while developing their BBC programme, including titles built around “Flying Circus.” John Cleese proposed “Python” because it sounded slippery and suitably comic. Eric Idle suggested “Monty,” a name the group later associated with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, producing the memorable combination “Monty Python.”

The complete title, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, was shaped by several influences. The BBC had referred to the six performers wandering around its offices as a circus, and “flying circus” also evoked the famous World War I squadron associated with the Red Baron. The final title sounded grand and slightly ridiculous without describing the programme’s actual contents.

The alternatives in the question were all members of the troupe, which makes this detail easy to confuse. Michael Palin, Terry Jones and Eric Idle helped create the group and its material, but the commonly credited suggestion for “Python” is Cleese’s. Accounts of the title’s development vary on some surrounding details, yet the attribution of “Python” to Cleese is the standard one.