Today the Armenian Church celebrates the Feast of the Naming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. The church observes the feast every year on January 13: eight days after its celebration of the Nativity of Christ on January 6.
This follows the authority of the Gospel of St. Luke, where we read that: “On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived” (Luke 2:21.) The Bible makes it clear that both Mary and Joseph were told in advance, by angelic messengers, that they were to give the child the name “Jesus.”
During the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel told Mary: “You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus” (Lk 1:31.) Likewise, Joseph received the assurance in a divine dream that Mary would “give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). As that verse suggests, the name “Jesus” means “God saves.”