Alma is a girl's name. It comes from a Hebrew word "almah," which appears throughout the Hebrew OT. In the KJV it is translated as "maiden" or "virgin." In modern English we'd translate the word as "young woman."

However, a few years back, the Mopologists were pounding their chests over a find in an obscure Dead Sea scroll showing what they claimed was a Hebrew man named "Alma son of Judah." They even started calling it "the Alma scroll." This seemingly provided evidence that the name "Alma" could (somehow) have been gender-neutral.

I was researching this a bit deeper, and I found an article by a professor Norman Golb, which mentions this so-called "Alma scroll" almost in passing. http://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/dss_review_sandiego_catalogue_2007.pdf Golb has a Ph.D. in Judaic and Semitic studies from Johns Hopkins University and is a professor of Jewish History and Civilization at the University of Chicago.

In his paper, he mentions that the Mormons are getting their "evidence" from an old translation, done in 1962, which he calls a "pioneering" and "tentative" translation. Apparently, the scroll was revisited in 2002, and this time the name was translated as "Allima," an unrelated Aramaic name meaning “the strong one” (which makes a lot more sense than a man effectively named "Woman"). It appears that the mopologists have it wrong yet again.

Great find! It is funny how frequently LDS rely on outdated scholarship.

I'm a man an Alma is my temple name.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2014 09:36PM by imaworkinonit.

Well, it is a pretty weak argument...it is conceivable that Alma is a male name in some culture, just not in the Indo-European (or apparently semetic) context.

What I really feel bad about are the Mormon boys given the name Alma. I had a missionary companion with this name.

Well, there are certainly much stronger cases to be made against the BoM, but this one is kind of funny. The Nephites were supposedly a Hebrew-speaking and Hebrew-writing culture. So, had they existed, they would've had to have known the word "almah." Its just funny to have a book claiming to be an authentic history of a Hebrew culture that has, as one of its main characters, a boy named Sue.

show me an male Alma on THIS continent, and I'd be persuaded.

It seems like there was a male Alma in Joseph Smith's vicinity. Am I remembering that correctly?

There's a town called Alma, NY which isn't all that far from Palmyra. Maybe that's what you were thinking of?

That is probably it...thanks nickname.

In Spanish it means "soul."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_River_%28Ukraine%29
"Alma is the Crimean Tatar word for an "apple"."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_%28given_name%29
"The exact origin of the name Alma is debated, but it is most likely derived, in the female form,[6] from the Latin word almus, which means "kind", "fostering", or "nourishing"."

Alma means soul in Portuguese as well.

like mine, as I'm a boy named Kay.

Although I've never personally met another male Kay but the stake president who signed my resignation letter acknowledgement was Kay Lines.

And I never got to shake his hand. :o(

Sorry Kay, but your name isn't androgynous, it's downright girly.

Different spelling.

K is very masculine!

Sir Kay from Disney's sword in the Stone

It is.also Latin for foster as in alma mater. Can.also mean kind or nourishing or gentle

Seriously, can you update "Alma" in wikipedia to include this?

Some one has inserted the apologist argument.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2014 06:32PM by crom.

Speaking of the Wikipedia article, I find it hilarious that Mormons searching Wikipedia for info about Alma will be greeted by a painting of a topless woman!

When I was TBM I was a little bummed that my new super secret name was a girls name...

A few months ago I was talking to my girlfriend about Mormon temple stuff and mentioned that my secret name was Alma and being from a Spanish speaking household she said "that's a girls name" to which I said "yeah, it's also the name of a couple characters from the book of Mormon"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2014 06:49PM by AKA Alma.

It's the first name of my grandma from Germany. it is a girls name. Period.

In Spanish Alma means 'soul', fem. never used in masculine terms; no name for a man.
In Italian 'Anema' is soul also.

Anima

That made me laugh so hard, I'm almost crying. This is such a great thread. I knew that Alma was a feminine name, but I had no idea that "alma" actually means "young woman" in Hebrew. Wow, way to nail it, Smith. lol

Nice find nickname. Thanks.

My parents had female friend named Alma and Dad had a male first cousin named Alma. She was a nice person...him, not so much.

Ron Burr

I have a good friend from Mexico named Alma. There are also elderly Italian ladies in my family with the name. I'd never realized until now that it's a male name in Mormon circles.

James Garner plays an investor who is hyping a stock for a
company that makes "widgets."

He finds a typo in a newspaper about how NASA needs midgets to
work in cramped spaces assembling spacecraft components but it's
misspelled with a "w" instead of "m." It says "NASA" needs all
the widgets it can get." So he quotes this to everyone.

That's kinda what Mopologists do. find ANYTHING in print that
makes them look good, whether it is valid or not, and quote it
as if it were the last word.

I work with a girl named Alma. It's a very common name in the African American community, especially with people in the baby boomer generation. She laughed her head off when I told her I know two men named Alma. She said she knows lots of Almas but never heard of a man with that name.

and wife of my atheist grandpa with the pink car. Grandma was never Mormon. Her Swedish immigrant parents were my only ancestors not to fall for Mormonism. The others all sucked it up like Hoover.