Where did the name Jesus come from?

Answer 1

Jesus was named from a messenger Archangel from God. Jesus means "Savior". An Archangel named Gabriel was sent by God to tell Mary (the mother of Jesus) to name Jesus 'Jesus'...which means 'one who saves'. But Jesus had also another name 'Emmanuel' which means 'God with us'. So these names were very appropriate for Jesus.

As for his 'surname' as such, the nearest we can get to this is as follows:

Family names, like we know them, were not used in Biblical times. However, just like people take their surnames today from occupations (baker, smith etc) and also from their parents (e.g. John's son = Johnson) or from where they, or an ancestor came from (like Hillary Clinton = Clint's Town) Jesus would have been known as Jesus of Nazareth, as, although Jesus was quite a common name, Nazareth in those times was a small place and so he may well have been the only 'Jesus' around in Nazareth at that time. He may also have been called Jesus bar Joseph where 'bar' means 'son of' (like 'mac' in the Scottish name MacDonald), as most people then regarded him as Joseph's son

What IS certain, however, is that his 'surname' was not'Christ'. This was his title - given to him by his followers. The word 'Christ' means 'messiah', 'deliverer' or 'savior' and for centuries, the Jews had been promised by God a savior for them all. Calling Jesus 'Christ' meant that the title of 'messiah' was placed upon him. So much in the way we say today Queen Elizabeth, or President Bush, we can also say Christ Jesus - Jesus the savior, Jesus the deliverer, Jesus the Messiah.

Answer 2

God told Mary before she was pregnant that she was going to have a son, and that this son would be the savior of everybody from their sins and God told her to name him Jesus Christ, which, I believe means Messiah or savior. Finally, the holy spirit impregnated her so that he would be born of a virgin and therefor not have the sins of his father.

Another View:

Let's look as His full Name: Jesus Christ. First, what does Jesus mean? As the New Testament is in the Greek, Jesus in the Hebrew is 'Joshua' meaning "God is salvation." See below:

Matthew 1:20-23New International Version (NIV)

20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[a] because he will save his people from their sins." 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"[b] (which means "God with us").

Footnotes: Matthew 1:21 Jesus is the Greek form of Joshua, which means the Lord saves. Matthew 1:23 Isaiah 7:14

Now what does Christ mean?

Actually, it isn't so much a proper name as it is a title. "Christ" comes from the Greek word Christos, meaning "anointed." Its meaning is the same as the Hebrew word Messiah. They both mean "anointed" or "anointed one" see below:

John 1:41New International Version (NIV) 41 The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, "We have found the Messiah" (that is, the Christ).

It is extremely to note here that the Jews of Christ's day expected a Messiah, an anointed one (please see John 4:25 below). They knew the significance of anointing, so they understood what the role of the Messiah would be. Without the background of the Old Testament, the term "Messiah" becomes meaningless, resulting in a shallow and distorted understanding of who and what Jesus Christ is.

John 4:25New International Version (NIV) 25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us."

Answer 3

Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, later Joseph and Mary took him to Egypt to avoid being killed by King Herod. Finally they returned to the hometown of Mary and Joseph, Nazareth in Galilee. Jesus spent most all his childhood and early manhood in Nazareth. Thereby earning the name Jesus of Nazareth.

Answer 4

Jesus was not named Jesus. He was named Yeshua or Yehoshua from the Hebrew word 'Yasha' meaning to save - Jesus' name means salvation.

Answer number two: Jesus is the Greek name for Yeshua/Yehoshua.

Answer 5

It may come from the Hebrew phrase meaning a cry for help. The Hebrew name Emmanuel (King James spelling) means "God with us" (Matthew 1:23). The Greek version of Jesus' name, Iesous, literally means "Jehovah is salvation."

Answer 6

"Christ" is a greek word that means "Annointed One" meaning someone with a special purpose chosen by God. It is a title that early Christians used to distinguish Jesus of Nazareth from other people named Jesus.

Answer 7

It was more usual in New Testament times for a man to be known as the son of his father, as in 'Jesus son of Joseph', so the name 'Jesus of Nazareth' is unusual for the period. In fact, the earliest extant reference to Jesus as 'Jesus of Nazareth' is found in Matthew's Gospel, which most scholars now believe to have been written in the 80s of the first century.

The earliest New Testament gospel, Mark's Gospel, in the original Greek language never refers to Jesus as 'Jesus of Nazareth' and in fact only mentions Nazareth once, in a disputed passage that does not identify Jesus as having lived in Nazareth. In some English translations, Mark refers to Jesus of (or from) Nazareth five times (Mark 1:9,24; 10:47; 14:67; 16:6). However, in the original Greek, four of these references actually refer to Jesus the Nazarene (Ναζαρηνοῦ). Now, calling someone a Nazarene could arguably mean that he is from the town of Nazareth, but also there was a sect known as the Nazarenes and this could also have meant that Jesus was a leader of the Nazarene sect.

We now know that the author of Matthew's Gospel relied on Mark's Gospel for much of his narrative. In doing so, he clarified which meaning he believed to be the correct explanation for Mark's use of the word Nazarene. The first time Nazareth is mentioned (Matthew 2:23), the author felt the need to explain that the child Jesus was taken to Nazareth "so that he shall be called a Nazarene."

Answer 8

God told Gabriel to tell Mary to name her son Jesus, no one knows the thoughts of God.

Answer 9

By an angel telling Joseph he was going to have a son and he was going to call him Jesus.