Charles Ellicott Commentary Luke 1:59

"And it came to pass on the eighth day, that they came to circumcise the child; and they would have called him Zacharias, after the name of the father." — Luke 1:59 (ASV)

They came to circumcise the child.—The day of circumcision, as the admission of the child into God’s covenant with his people, was, like the day of baptism for infants among Christians, an occasion on which relatives were invited to be present as witnesses, and was commonly followed by a feast. It was also, as baptism has come to be, the time when the child received the name that was to bear witness to the prayers of his parents for him, and of his personal relation to the God of his fathers.

They called him . . .—The Greek tense is strictly imperfect—they were calling him. The choice of the name commonly rested with the father, but the relatives seem to have assumed that, due to the father’s muteness, the duty devolved on them, and they, according to a custom not uncommon, showed their respect for the father by choosing his name.