Is Zachary in the Bible? Yes, as Zechariah and Zacharias

Yes, as Zechariah. Zachary is the English form of Zacharias, the Greek spelling of the Hebrew name Zechariah, which means “Yahweh remembers.” The best-known men with the name are the prophet Zechariah, whose book is in the Old Testament, and the priest Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist in Luke 1.

Is Zachary in the Bible?

The name is in the Bible, spelled in several ways. Most modern translations use Zechariah in both Testaments. The King James Version uses Zechariah for the prophet and most men in the Old Testament, Zachariah for a king of Israel and for the grandfather of King Hezekiah, and Zacharias in the New Testament. The Douay-Rheims Bible, the older Catholic translation into English, calls John the Baptist’s father Zachary: “There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest named Zachary” (Luke 1:5).

Zechariah and Zacharias are the same name, but the prophet and the father of John the Baptist are different men, who lived more than five hundred years apart. The name was common in ancient Israel, and the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia lists about thirty men called Zechariah in the Old Testament alone.

What does Zachary mean?

The Hebrew name, Zekharyah, joins the verb zakhar, “to remember,” to Yah, a short form of the name of God. So Zachary means “Yahweh remembers” or “the Lord has remembered.”

The meaning appears in the song that Luke gives to John the Baptist’s father. When his son is born, Zechariah praises God, who has acted “to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham” (Luke 1:72–73). The first half of that line is the meaning of his own name, and the second is close to the meaning of his wife’s: Elizabeth means “my God is an oath.”

Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist

Luke introduces Zechariah as “a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah,” married to Elizabeth, who was descended from Aaron (Luke 1:5). They were old and had no children. While he was serving in the temple, the angel Gabriel told him that Elizabeth would bear a son, to be named John. Zechariah asked, “How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years,” and Gabriel said that he would be “silent and unable to speak” until it happened, “because you did not believe my words” (Luke 1:18–20).

When the child was eight days old, the relatives wanted to name him after his father. Zechariah asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John,” and at once he could speak again (Luke 1:59–64). He then “was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied” (Luke 1:67). His prophecy, Luke 1:68–79, is known from its first word in Latin as the Benedictus.

Zechariah the prophet

The prophet was “Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo,” and his book opens in “the second year of Darius” (Zechariah 1:1), about 520 BC. With the prophet Haggai he urged the Jews who had returned from exile in Babylon to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem, and they “built and prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo” (Ezra 6:14). His message to the governor Zerubbabel is one of his best-known lines: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6).

The Gospels quote him when they tell of Jesus’ death and of his entry into Jerusalem. Zechariah 9:9 describes a king coming “humble and mounted on a donkey,” and Matthew and John cite it for Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:5; John 12:15). The thirty pieces of silver thrown “to the potter” in Zechariah 11:12–13 lie behind Matthew 27:9–10, which names Jeremiah as the source. John quotes Zechariah 12:10 at the cross: “They will look on him whom they have pierced” (John 19:37).

Other Zechariahs in the Bible

Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, a priest, rebuked the people of Judah for forsaking the Lord, and “by command of the king they stoned him with stones in the court of the house of the Lord.” As he died he said, “May the Lord see and avenge!” (2 Chronicles 24:20–22). Jesus spoke of the righteous blood shed “from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar” (Matthew 23:35; compare Luke 11:51). Barachiah is the same name as Berechiah, the prophet’s father, and interpreters have long debated which Zechariah Jesus meant. Many identify him with the son of Jehoiada. Chronicles is the last book of the Hebrew Bible, and his death there was counted the last martyrdom of the Old Testament, as Abel’s in Genesis was the first.

Zechariah, the son of Jeroboam II, was king of Israel for six months before Shallum killed him and took the throne (2 Kings 14:29; 15:8–10). Others include a Levite who helped cleanse the temple for King Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 29:13) and one of the men who stood beside Ezra when he read the Law to the people (Nehemiah 8:4).

Is Zachary a Christian name?

Yes. It is a biblical name, and the father of John the Baptist is honored as a saint. Zachary has been used in English since the Middle Ages, though it became common only after the Protestant Reformation. Pope Zachary (reigned 741–752), from a Greek family in Calabria, approved Pepin the Short’s claim to be king of the Franks. Zachary Taylor (1784–1850) was the twelfth president of the United States. In the United States the name was among the 20 most popular for boys every year from 1992 to 2003, peaking at 12th in 1994, and it ranked 216th in 2025. Zach, Zack and Zac are its short forms.

Other languages have their own forms: Zacharie in French, Zaccaria in Italian, Zacarías in Spanish and Zakhar in Russian. In the Qur’an the father of John is Zakariyya, and his prayer for a son is told in Surah 3 and Surah 19.

Related reading

• Does the Name Elizabeth Hold Biblical Significance? Yes, She Is John’s Mother
• Were Jesus and John the Baptist Cousins?
• Is Your Name in the Bible? A Directory of 231 Names