Posted by:
anybody
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Date: May 26, 2018 10:13AM
https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/05/leave-ryker-and-questin-and-anbre-alone-it-makes-perfect-sense-that-mormons-give-their-kids-unusual-names.html" By now, I’ve heard all the jokes about Utah names, but what I haven’t heard is a unified theory of just why the Mormon people of Utah are so inclined to create them. I humbly offer two hypotheses.
The first is my historical-cultural theory—that the penchant for invented names among Mormons lies in its very foundation: It goes all the way back to its founder, Joseph Smith, who had to come up with the names of hundreds of figures to populate the faith’s foundational text that he wrote, the Book of Mormon. So I guess you could say it all started there, with Mormon himself.
Now, for the faithful Mormons who believe that Smith’s writing of the Book of Mormon was a translation of what he found on the golden plates, and not an invention in itself, this theory may be lacking. But even if you believe Mormon and Nephi and Amnor and Laman were real historical figures who once roamed the North American continent, the idea that Mormons come from a people with melodious and distinctive names is still a reasonable explanation for today’s Mormons’ own belief that they deserve the same.
My second theory is more sociological. Due to the LDS church’s teachings, which enthusiastically urge procreation and center the nuclear family above all else, there are a LOT of kids in Utah—women in Utah give birth to an average of 2.3 kids in their lifetimes, while the national average is just 1.8 children.
The families in Utah tend to be relatively homogenous—overall, Utah is becoming increasingly diverse, both racially and religiously, but that diversity is overwhelmingly concentrated in its capital, Salt Lake City. In small towns like the one where I grew up, Payson (located about 60 miles south of Salt Lake), the population is almost 96 percent white and 93 percent Mormon. That overwhelming portion of Mormons matters a lot. It means almost all of these kids share a culture, and a strong one—one that sends them to the same churches to learn the same religious curriculum week after week, that encourages them to wear similarly modest clothes and use polite language, and to plan for future booze-free lives centered around family and faith. "
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2018 10:16AM by anybody.