Perspectives on Latter-Day Saint Names and Naming: Names, Identity, and Belief

Perspectives on Latter-day Saint Names and Naming approaches cultural, historical, and doctrinal dimensions of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints through a fresh lens that explores how these dimensions intersect with names and naming.

Featuring a collection of chapters from multiple authors, its bipartite structure examines fascinating topics in relation to the Church, looking first at cultural and historical perspectives before analyzing doctrinal and scriptural perspectives. The book discusses such matters as how contemporary naming practices of Latter-day Saints compare to those outside the faith, how code names were used in one of the faith’s books of scripture to protect Church leaders from persecution, and how names and naming relate to the covenant identity of Church members.

Through its fresh approach to understanding religious identity and belief in relation to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this book is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of Mormon studies and will also be of interest to people with a fascination with names and naming issues as those occur in a variety of settings, including religious ones.

Dallin D. Oaks is a professor of English Linguistics at Brigham Young University, and the author or editor of several books, including Linguistics at Work and Structural Ambiguity in English (2 vols.).

Paul Baltes edits academic books and other creative works. He has been researching names since his MA Thesis. He continues to research and apply how we process meaning in business and leadership organizations.

Kent Minson has worked in editing and publishing for over two decades and is currently the manager of BYU Academic Publishing.