What's in a Name? Book of Mormon Language, Names, and [Metonymic] Naming
Journal of Book of Mormon Studies
1994
3
1
Provo, UT
Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship
1994
1-27
"Anthropological perspectives lend insight on names and on the social and literary function of names in principle and in the Book of Mormon. A discussion of the general function of names in kinship; secret names; and names, ritual, and rites of passage precedes a Latter-day Saint perspective. Names and metonymy are used symbolically. Examples include biblical and Book of Mormon metonymic naming, nomenclature, and taxonomy. Biblical laws of purity form the foundation for a pattern of metonymic associations with the name Lamanite, where the dichotomy of clean/unclean is used to give name to social alienation and pollution." [abstract provided]