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Why the name "Mormon?"

© Rebecca Talley

The official name of the Mormon Church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints." (Doctrine and Covenants 115:4)

The Lord himself named the Church and said, "And how be it my church save it be called in my name? For if a church be called in Moses' name then it be Moses' church; or if it be called in the name of a man then it be the church of a man: but if it be called in my name then it is my church, if it so be that they are built upon my gospel." (3 Nephi 27:8)

The nickname, Mormon, has been associated with the Church because of our belief in the Book of Mormon. We believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. (See previous article on the Eighth Article of Faith) We believe that it is a record of ancient American inhabitants. These inhabitants originally came from the land of Jerusalem and began to populate what is now known as the American continents. A record of their journeys and subsequent lives are recorded in the Book of Mormon.

We believe that Mormon was a prophet who lived in the Americas approximately 400 years after the birth of Christ. He was entrusted with the record of his people that dated back to 600 BC. In Mormon 6:6 we read, "And it came to pass that when we had gathered in all our people in one to the land of Cumorah, behold I, Mormon, began to be old; and knowing it to be the last struggle of my people, and having been commanded of the Lord that I should not suffer the records which had been handed down by our fathers, which were sacred, to fall into the hands of the Lamanites, (for the Lamanites would destroy them) therefore I made these records out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord; save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son, Moroni." After abridging the record of the Jaredites, Moroni placed the records in the hillside of Cumorah.

About 1400 years later, in the spring of 1820, Moroni appeared as a resurrected being to a young boy, age 14, named Joseph Smith. The angel Moroni instructed Joseph Smith for four years until it was time to bring forth the record. On September 23, 1824 Joseph Smith went to the Hill Cumorah, in upstate New York, and removed the record. He then translated it into what is now The Book of Mormon.

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