BrowserID, Mozilla's identity project, will be now known as Persona. The Web-based implementation of the BrowserID pop-up over to the new name will take place over the next few months.

The purpose of Persona is to enable users to manage their online identities, profiles and account. Users will be able to sign up only once , for Persona, then log into any sites that supports this servers removing the need to register, similar to Facebook and Google accounts.

Some might get mixed up, since a few years ago Mozilla released Firefox Personas, easy-to-use themes that let you personalize the look of your Firefox, but announced that they will change the name because it doesn't represent the product.

But why the Persona" name?

(source)

The Persona name resonates with the idea of personhood as well as online identity as a facet of our lives, and therefore strongly tied to user identity. We’re very excited about this new name and the new features our identity system will offer. Some of the things we’re planning: an identity dashboard, user data interconnect features, and more.

At this moment there are very few sites that support Persona and most of them are demo sites. But the name change signals that the service is ready for a more broader audience.