“Mormon”: From an acceptable nickname to a discouraged label

The earlier position

The nickname had institutional approval

Ballard distinguished the institution’s full name from an acceptable nickname for its members. He discouraged “Mormon Church” even while allowing “Mormon” for people. That distinction makes the earlier permission precise: it was neither a new formal name nor merely an outsider’s label.

A September 2012 Ensign article described the Church’s campaign, launched in 2010, as a way to share the gospel through members’ lives. Television, billboards, and Mormon.org profiles made the identity part of an organized missionary presentation.

October 1990

Hinckley: make the nickname “shine”

In a general conference talk titled “Mormon Should Mean ‘More Good,’” Gordon B. Hinckley, then First Counselor in the First Presidency, acknowledged that “the Mormon Church, of course, is a nickname” and concluded: “We may not be able to change the nickname, but we can make it shine with added luster.” He became Church president in 1995.

The later direction

The nickname became an offense to God

In October 2018, Church President Russell M. Nelson presented correct use of the Church’s name as the Lord’s command. He said: “To remove the Lord’s name from the Lord’s Church is a major victory for Satan.” He continued: “And if we allow nicknames to be used or adopt or even sponsor those nicknames ourselves, He is offended.”

He also applied the point to members: “Have we been so afraid to offend someone who called us ‘Mormons’ that we have failed to defend the Savior Himself, to stand up for Him even in the name by which His Church is called?” Yet “I’m a Mormon” had been the Church’s own campaign of television ads, billboards, and Mormon.org profiles, and an apostle had called “Mormon” “an acceptable nickname when applied to members” seven years earlier. Nelson’s talk did not mention either.

The current style guide requests “Latter-day Saints” or the full member designation and rejects “Mormons” and “LDS.” It still permits Mormon in proper names such as the Book of Mormon.

Finding

What the record establishes

A person who remembers being encouraged to say “I’m a Mormon” remembers an actual Church campaign. A future Church president had urged members to make the nickname “shine,” and an apostle had called it acceptable for members. The Church president later taught that using such nicknames offends the Lord and that omitting Christ’s name is a victory for Satan, without acknowledging that the Church itself had sponsored them.