One of the tasks I perform at the mission office is to enter into the records of the church the personal information for each person that is baptized by the missionaries. The very first information I enter is their name.
In Ecuador, as in many Latin countries, men and women usually have four names. When I first arrived, I was told “They certainly are proud of their many names.” I have grown to appreciate the genealogical utility of their naming convention. Children have two given names (we would call them first and middle names) and then two last names, first their father’s last name, and then their mother’s first last name, which is her father’s last name. Even the humblest person thus has at least four names which contains a short history of their ancestry.
A friend of mine understood the genealogical significance of names. Her married name was Shipley. Her maiden name was Sharp. Each of her children carried the middle name of Sharp. Even though FirstName Sharp Shipley didn’t necessarily roll off your tongue, she preserved a bit of her family history in the names of her children.
Jessica’s middle name is K. It comes from my middle name, Kay, which was supposed to be K. My middle name came from a great-grandfather who was called JK. Mandy’s middle name is Elizabeth, my grandmother’s first name. Christopher bears the name of my brother, as well as his father’s name, Daniel, which is his middle name. We finally got our complete act together when we named Cole. His name is Cole Hopkins Griesemer. His first name is Dan’s mother’s maiden name; his middle name is my maiden name. Thus he has three last names.
When I lived in Sandy, there was a woman in our ward who, unlike the rest of us, resisted the temptation to come up with a list of names for her impending baby. She maintained that she would know the baby’s name when she first saw him/her. I thought that was a little wacky at the time. But as I have contemplated the deep significance of names over the intervening years, I have come to the conclusion that it is appropriate to allow the Spirit to have input as to how we name our children.
In fact, our names are sacred. Though they are a gift from our parents, and from our husbands in the case of married women, they gather identity and significance because of what we do with our lives. To illustrate, the words “Joseph Smith” mean nothing in and of themselves. Further, the very name Joseph Smith is a combination of two of the most common American names possible. And yet, in his epiphanous First Vision, Joseph Smith tells us that the very first word spoken by Heavenly Father was Joseph’s own name: “One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (Joseph Smith History 1:17)
Indeed, Joseph Smith’s name was prophetically foretold to an ancient progenitor, another Joseph, namely he who was sold into Egypt. Heavenly Father revealed to that Joseph the following:
A choice seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins. . . and unto him will I give commandment that he shall do a work for the fruit of thy loins. . . which shall be of great worth unto them, even to the bringing of them to the knowledge of the covenants which I have made with thy fathers. . . . And his name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father. (2 Nephi 3:7, 15)
Thus, Joseph Smith was Joseph Smith Jr., son of Joseph Smith Sr., and descendant of Joseph of Egypt.
Further, when Moroni, an ancient American prophet, was sent by God to communicate to the embryonic prophet Joseph, he followed the pattern established by their Father; the first thing he spoke was Joseph’s name:
He called me by name, and said unto me that he was a messenger sent from the presence of God to me, and that his name was Moroni; that God had a work for me to do; and that my name should be had for good and evil among all nations, kindreds, and tongues. . . . (Joseph Smith History 1:33)
Moroni, whose name itself brings to memory the story of a prophet who witnessed the utter and complete destruction of his people, chose to tell Joseph Smith—of all the things he could have said in his first few words—that Joseph’s name would be had for good and evil.
It is very interesting to me that the scriptures plainly tell us that Christ’s name is far more than an identifier meaning “that particular person.” Notice that the two analogies cited in the following verse are not only miraculous examples of salvation from physical emergencies, but the remedies were also so simple as to seem illogical. One can easily imagine the children of Israel muttering, “How can looking at a brass serpent heal me?” and yet, it would have, had they looked. We are meant to contemplate how Christ's name is similar to the raised serpent and the water-emitting rock:
. . . And as the Lord God liveth that brought Israel up out of the land of Egypt, and gave unto Moses power that he should heal the nations after they had been bitten by the poisonous serpents, if they would cast their eyes unto the serpent which he did raise up before them, and also gave him power that he should smite the rock and the water should come forth; yea, behold I say unto you, that as these things are true, and as the Lord God liveth, there is none other name given under heaven save it be this Jesus Christ, of which I have spoken, whereby man can be saved. (2 Nephi 25:20, see also Mosiah 3:17 and Acts 4:12)
This verse is correctly interpreted to mean that only by virtue of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ can we be saved. But the way the verse is written emphasizes the fact that what Christ did with his life endowed his very name with power, just as what Joseph Smith did with his life forever changed how his name would be spoken, either for good or evil, depending on your orientation to his works.
We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. We witness during the sacrament each Sunday that we are willing to take upon us the name of the Son. King Benjamin (in the Book of Mormon), in recognition of the covenant his people made to be obedient to God, invited them to take upon them the name of Christ and further said, “. . . whosoever shall not take upon him the name of Christ must be called by some other name. . .” (Mosiah 5:10).
Because names are commonplace—we all have one or more—does not necessarily mean they are common. Our parents named us. But the significance of our name is entirely of our own making. And whose name we voluntarily take upon us, whether Christ’s or some other name--for there are only those two choices--is also entirely up to us.
Tomorrow, as I enter more names of people who have been baptized, I will remember that by so doing, they have chosen to taken upon themselves Christ’s name, and thereby have accessed power, the power of His Name, that is beyond our present ability to comprehend.
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