Do we know the last name of Jesus and Mary?

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WilT

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:)I was just wondering that other than “of Nazareth” do they have a last name?
 
I don’t think they used last names like we do.
They might have used “son of” of “from…” To differentiate those who have the same names. Or maybe used a distinguishing feature, like a nick name : Eric the Red.
I think last names are a pretty recent custom.
 
WilT said:
:)I was just wondering that other than “of Nazareth” do they have a last name?
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They don’t. They didn’t really have last names in that culture - that’s why to distinguish between two people with the same name either you identify them by their parent’s name, usually that of the father (“son of…” bar- in Aramaic - hence bar-Jona or bar-abbas or Bartholomew/bar-Tolmay or bar-Jesus or bar-Timaeus) or some other relation or by the place where they came from (“Jesus of Nazareth,” “Mary Magdalene”) or whatever they did for a living or some physical feature or some monicker. In other words, one is identified by something that distinguishes him/her from another person that has the same name as him/her.

Family names became common in different cultures at different times. So while you already had something that resembles the concept of a ‘surname’ in China during the Shang Dynasty (1600–1046 BC), surnames only became common in England around the 14th century AD. (Ireland was the first place in Europe to use fixed surnames - 9th century.) In Japan, commoners only began to have surnames around the 19th century. The Romans had their unique three-part naming convention, but the interesting thing is that due to the influence of Christianity/Greek culture and Germanic culture in the West, eventually the use of formal family names declined.

To take one example, the Jewish historian Josephus talks about a number of ‘Jesuses’ in his works. Excepting Jesus of Nazareth (who is simply identified as “Jesus, a wise man”) and a couple other guys, most of them are identified by patronymics: Jesus son of Phabi, Jesus son of Gamalas/Gamaliel, Jesus son of Sapphas/Sapphias, Jesus son of Gamala, Jesus son of Thebuti, Jesus son of Damnaeus, Jesus son of Ananias.
  • You would notice that in Mark 6:3 Jesus is identified by the people of Nazareth as the “son of Mary,” which would have been unusual because Jesus would have normally been called “son of Joseph.” While this could be simply because Joseph had probably already died, there’s also the idea that the reason they called Him this way as an insult: being called the ‘son of a woman’ in a Jewish context is not very complimentary, because it had connotations of illegitimacy. Perhaps they had a hunch (or maybe they even knew) that Joseph wasn’t really Jesus’ biological father and thought that He was a bastard son?
 
Such ‘last name’ is not known to us.

Why would you even ask such a question? Why would you imagine that anybody here would have a short answer to this question?

But, on that note, I was reading Gen 46 today, and it had a list of names of the offspring of the sons of Jacob. Benjamin had several sons and two of them were named Huppiim and Muppim. Dan had a son by the name of Hushim. And, Napthali’s sons included Jezer and Guni.
 
WilT said:
:)I was just wondering that other than “of Nazareth” do they have a last name?
Click to expand...
I was always told that their last name was Salinas. Which just happens to be my last name too. I think I have an inside track. :angel1:
 
Sure we all know that Jesus was part Irish so it would have to be Jesus O’Abba. 😃
 
WilT said:
:)I was just wondering that other than “of Nazareth” do they have a last name?
Click to expand...
He could have been called “Jesus Nazarene” in the same way that one of the Mary’s in the Bible is called Mary Magdalene, based on her town of origin plus the suffix “-ene” to indicate “from” (I think).
 
Carpenter!! (just kidding). Wouldn’t it be “bar” something? Would Jesus be “bar Joseph”? I thought it would be a translation of "son of…?
 
An interesting fact on names is Barrabas (bar-Abba) means ‘son of the father’.
So Pontus Pilate had the Son of God and the Son of the Father locked up in the same jail, at the same time. Which is quite a coincidence!
 
richzebra said:
An interesting fact on names is Barrabas (bar-Abba) means ‘son of the father’.
So Pontus Pilate had the Son of God and the Son of the Father locked up in the same jail, at the same time. Which is quite a coincidence!
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great trivial question.🎉
 
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