Order for Jerry Falwell - one King James with extra butter and sour cream.

http://rumandmonkey.com/widgets/toys/mormon/

I've been lurking for a while (found your blog through Nancy) but never felt like I had much to contribute. I guess I still don't, but I thought you might get a kick out of this link. :)

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Hear, hear. Everyone since Joe and Brigham seem to have been playing the role of political spin doctor.

You know, even when I was a wee tyke and attending church every day, I could never figure out why all the adults were so enamoured of the idea that Joseph couldn't possibly have written the BoM being that he was an "uneducated boy of 14". (Which is erroneous anyway, because he didn't "get" and "translate" the BoM until many years later.) I mean, I was making up worlds and drawing maps of my future planets before I hit puberty, and charting out histories of families and making huge improbably family trees for thirty generations. If I could do it, Joe probably could.

Oh, the possibilities.

D

My wife got a cool one though: Alvira Pawnece America.

I'm really disappointed.

It's really just like my actual name. But not.

After work, I'm heading to Fred Meyer and picking up some thermal long johns and colored felt and make me some snappy churchly undervestments.

Laertis sounds like a minor character from the Aeneid, or a Sabine nymph.

---G.

That's not quite the same as Laertis.

I'm
Young Elizabeth Miracles Precious One

Which is kind of a big handle. Can you imagine trying to call me in to supper? Two hours later....My real name actually means, The Oath Of God, Bitter, the Terrible, so at least it's perkier.

MKK

I have the misfortune of becoming "Jerem LeeMaster". I'm not
sure if I prefer my "Crappy Little Elf Name", "Juniper Merryweather" (from http://rumandmonkey.com/widgets/toys/elf/index.php on the same site).

However, poking around the site some more, I found an author bio which consists solely of a recipe for home-made Kahlua:

http://rumandmonkey.com/articles/bio.php?authorid=1

How's that for neatly tying together several recent nielsenhayden.com threads?

"Stockton Malone Cordell."

I sound like either three towns in California, or a greedy land baron in a Zane Grey Western.

That's not so bad, I guess.

Of course, the Elf Name Generator produced "Oakhand Horsebeard," which actually sounds like a Dwarf in stacked heels and Spock makeup who's trying to pass.

I know you don't know me, but how's that for an odd prefix?

As an elf, I'm John M. Ford's sister: Brookbank Horsebeard. I feel ready for some oats and hay now.

MKK

That's my name, don't wear it out!

It has a certain je ne sais quoi, n'pas?.

(On the other hand, the Mormon name of my Pirate name is Iron Rod Glint.)

Mormon: Mick BonScott Jordan River [practically oozes je nais sais quoi, that or sauve qui peut]

Hobbit: Lotho Loamsdown [an earthy name if ever I heard one]

Elvish: Glorfindel Ancaledmon [probably to be found somewhere in the Silmarillion or the Book of Lost Tales]

D

My Elf name is Elfis Merryweather, if I use the name I have now. My growing-up name turns into Oakhand Horsebeard. Does that mean I'm Mike?

Though I do wish the Professor was handy to give us a derivation of "Horsebeard." I mean, either we're part of the crowd that used to fight alongside the Monarchists of Rohan, and there was some kind of odd quartering involved (as, Punctillio Ildefonse Spadebeard, do you take Mimsy Horseheimer . . .), or else we're all wearing fake chin whiskers made from sofa stuffing. The reasons for this are hazy, but it probably involves going into the West on a boat with Groucho.

Ah. Of course. As with so many new Americans, our monicker got mangled at Ellis Island.

The Mormon name is Rickisha Stefinee, which is just too awful to contemplate.

Gack!

Including my Catholic Confirmation name, however, makes it LaDonnaJosephrania Brandiese, which I find somewhat more tolerable, though perhaps too much of a muchness. (What's with the no-spaces runtogether first name/s?) Not that almost anything wouldn't be an improvement!

The Mormon translation of that is Dearwin Brindalyn, and (deity-name here) help me, I've heard worse!

Actually, did anyone else notice that the "elf" names are unisex? The generator doesn't ask your "gender preference" as the Mormonizer page does. Dearwin is the female "translation" since I didn't change the radio button. So, when I realized that, I ran ol' Leafwind's name through the Mormonizer as a male and became LeGrand Carrington, who sounds like a character from the old TV series Dynasty.

Any of which are infinitely preferable to Lovie Angel. (Still gacking over that one.)

But getting back to the original topic of discussion, what (if anything) is the reaction of the CoLDS to this? (Hey - neat acronym. I never realised... There is no cure for CoLDS!)

And add another twig to the Horsebeard family tree - I'm Sheeplass Horsebeard. Does anyone else think I sound a little...confused?

Gack. It sounds like something out of the Conan novels.

Mormons in the surrounding states wouldn't admit this in front of gentiles, but they think those people in Utah are a little strange.

Mormon name: Sylvan Allora LaLovi
Which I think rolls off the tongue quite satisfyingly. I approve.

Elf: Shetland Nobblewit
Not sure how to take this one. Still the horse theme, I notice. Sounds more like a hobbit. (But if I add my middle name, I get "Leafwind Clouddash," which is appalling.)

My "Iraqi Leadership" name, I note, varies quite a bit depending on how long I want it to be. I could be:
Sultan al-Sadi
Sayf al-Jizrawi al-Naqib
Qusay al-Khafaji al-Faisal al-Rawi
Sayf Abd al-Karim Tilfah Abd al-Baqi

Of the name generators, I think the Mormon one must be the most sophisticated code.

My Mormon name is Teresa Barbara Sophronia Nielsen Hayden.

And 'Sophronia' is a name I've heard only in a very sad (in several senses) Zenna Henderson story. I thought she made it up. But of course, just because something's made up doesn't mean it isn't true.

According to the list of names and their meanings in my old 1960s edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, it comes from Greek and means "sensible."

It's also a genus of butterflies.

Sensible butterflies, I imagine.

Teresa, one of my great-aunts was named Ruth, but her mother generally called her "Nita Babe Oh, the Devil! Ruth," if family legend is to be believed. Her two older sisters were named Anita and Babe, you see.

Lois, sensible butterflies? There's something Very Wrong with that concept.

---L.

There were string-of-names stories in my mother's family -- seems to be commoner in large families (my father had one sister, no brothers).

Cheers,
Tom W.

I like CoLDS as an abbreviation. It goes well with FARMS, the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies: an organization of shameless intellectual prostitutes whose specialty is coming up with New World justifications for all those Old World items the Book of Mormon so inconveniently identified as existing in the pre-Columbian Americas. Horses, for example; according to FARMS, we are to understand that in chapter 18 of the book of Alma, where it says that King Lamoni's chariot is drawn by horses, the animals they actually have in harness are tapirs.

Very wonderful to contemplate, FARMS.

All we need now is something that spells out COMFORT, and we're set.

Oh, and Kim? I'd say you got a gratifying amount of response to your link. Thanks, and welcome.

What are CoLDS and FLDS by the way? I know what LDS is, but I don't think I've seen CoLDS and FLDS before.

Church of Latter Day Saints (I am inferring) and Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints.

Terry K.

In any event, I think that Melekin's reworking of the BoM fits comfortably within the family of AICs (an abbreviation variously used to mean "African Independent Churches," "African Initiated Churches" or "African Instituted Churches"). The AICs, which collectively have about 85 million followers, resulted from Africans' encounters with missionaries of marginal Protestant denominations. Each church has its own history, but they generally took less than a generation to slip out of the hands of their missionary founders and become syncretized. Some have come full circle and begun to establish a foothold in the United States due to African immigration.

There are three main categories of AICs: Ethiopian, prophetic and Zionist (the last of which gets its name from the Christian Catholic Church of Zion, Illinois rather than from political Zionism). The Zionist churches are the most syncretized, with many accepting polygamy; the Ethiopian churches differ from their missionary ancestors largely in local control rather than liturgy. (This is a very simplistic summary, but there's plenty of literature out there.)

As I said above, the CoLDS has many of the same features that enabled other marginal Protestant and Pentecostal sects to succeed in Africa. The CoLDS has also been involved in active missionary activity in Africa for about 25 years, which is about the right amount of time for Mormon-based AICs to develop. I'm guessing that Melekin's church will be the first of many, and that some will be far more radical, particularly in southern Africa where polygamy will be a factor. Within another 20 years, the African LDS offshoots might come full circle in the manner of AICs such as the Celestial Church of Christ, and set up shop in the United States. At that point, the people in Salt Lake City will have a dilemma on their hands.

Anne: How about Cliquish Old Men Fabricating Our Revealed Truth?