Does Jesus have
a Last Name?

Q. Did Jesus have a last name like we do?

A. No. Although many people refer to Him as Jesus Christ, the Greek word translated as "Christ" is cristos (Strong's Concordance # G5547), which means "anointed" and was commonly used to refer to the prophesied Messiah or Savior. It would be more proper, grammatically, to say the phrase: Jesus, the Christ.

"You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus." (Luke 1:31, NIV)

"And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus." (Luke 1:31, NKJV)

The name Jesus is a transliteration of the Greek word Ιησους, Strong's #G2424. A transliteration is taking the way a word is pronounced in one language and spelling it according to the way it SOUNDS when written with the letters of another language. The Greek word used for Jesus, in turn, is derived from the Hebrew or Aramaic word Yehowshuwa. This word, Strong's #H3091, is the same Hebrew word translated in the Old Testament as Joshua.

It is interesting that the name of the God of the Old Testament, first mentioned in Exodus 6:2, is the Hebrew word YHWH (Jehovah - Strong's #H3068).

"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand he will let them go, and with a strong hand he will drive them out of his land.' And God spoke to Moses and said to him: 'I am the Lord (YHWH). I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by My name Lord (YHWH) I was not known to them . . . ' " (Exodus 6:1-3)

Note that Hebrew does not print the vowels in words as is done in English. If you write God's name as it was written in the Old Testament (we would pronounce it Yahweh or Jehovah) and add the Hebrew word we would pronounce yasha (which means "salvation, or "to free"), you will get the word Yehowshua.