Mormon temple names
Mormon temple names
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Guest Post
Exponent II features the work of guest authors writing about issues related to Mormonism and feminism. Submit a guest post Write for Exponent II.

Of Ritas and Rhodas: Deciphering the Origins of the Women’s Temple Names

By J. Martinez

{I understand that revealing a temple name is a sensitive choice, if you continue reading, you will know what my name was. Though I try to treat the subject with sensitivity, there’s no secret or sacred here} 

What will you call her?

November 16, 2013, I went through the temple for the first time. 

Like most members, I went in blind—it turned out the multiple temple prep courses did little to prepare me for what I was about to experience. I did have some vague inklings, I had heard whispers about a temple name, I thought it might have been the name I had had before I had come to the earth. I had hoped for something pretty or at least meaningful… maybe Esther or Lydia. 

What I didn’t and couldn’t know was that if I had scheduled my appointment for three days later, I would have been a Lydia. Four days later and I would have been an Esther. 

Instead, I got R***a. 

I’m sure I tried to freeze my face to keep it from betraying my dismay. It felt like I had already failed some test, that God had only deemed me worthy of an old lady name. Did this say something about what he thought of me? Were there any takebacks? Could I appeal? 

As soon as I got home, I raced to my scriptures, hoping to divine the meaning behind my name. What I found was a story about a girl who got so excited that a prophet had arrived at her house that she forgot to let him in and left him waiting on the doorstep. 

Surprisingly, I was satisfied. It was funny, it had personality. It’s not like I had high expectations when it came to representation of women in my faith. I’d take what I could get. Besides, it’s not like I could do anything to change it. 

I am looking for further light and knowledge 

When I got back from my mission, I worked at the temple for several months. I learned that there is one name given to all women who enter the temple on a particular day. I also had a temple worker mention that she thought it was so sweet that the name Camilla had been included in honor of the wife of Spencer W Kimball. I still didn’t know about the calendar. 

In 2020, I began my transition away from the church. Like many, my journey included Lindsey Hansen Park’s podcast, a Year of Polygamy. As I listened to the biographies of the wives of Joseph Smith I was startled when I hit episode 29: Rhoda Richards. I felt horrified. Had I been wrong? Was my name not a tribute to an excited girl but to a lonely, old woman? It felt like a gross joke. Was this the case for all the names?

Unveil your faces 

I turned to Temple Name Oracle. For the uninitiated, Temple Name Oracle is a website cross referencing temple names against the date the name was received. It was there I learned about the calendar. 

It turns out that until 1880 there was just one name given to women in the temple: Sarah. Then, for almost 100 years, it was left to the discretion of the temple worker to give whatever name they chose for initiates. 

I was not surprised that the church eventually chose standardization over what I can only imagine was recordkeeping chaos. 

In 1965, the church produced a standardized list of 31 female names. If you went on the first of the month, you were an Adah, if you went on the 31st, you were a Zina. And yes, the list was alphabetized. 

The list was updated periodically. 

In 1974 they returned to a more haphazard list that assigned a name to each day of the year. This list included 50 female names repeated throughout the year and included unique finds like: Carla, Christina, Joan, Rita and Victoria. 

1983 reduced the list back down to 31 names 

1993 had the strictest list of all: still 31 names and this time 100% of the names were scriptural. 

That list lasted 20 years until our current list was introduced Jan, 1, 2014. 

As I read through the names I decided to tackle the project, find out once and for all where all the names had come from. I figured between the Oracle, a detailed spreadsheet and google, I would be done in no time. 

As Touching the Principle 

My fears that the names all came from wives of Joseph Smith were quickly assuaged.

❖ Of the 34 women listed by Todd Compton as the wives of Joseph Smith, only 17 of the women have been used as temple names. Removing duplicates, we are left with 14 unique names. 

Of those 14 names, 7 were Bible names. 

Of the remaining 7, all but two had significant roles in church history (Emma, Eliza, Zina and Helen were all prominent presidents of the Relief Society and Lucy was Joseph Smith’s mother among several other significant references). 

That only leaves the names Agnes and Flora. Given that Flora was only used in the most recent cycle, it is much more likely that it was in honor of the wife of Ezra Taft Benson than a secret reference to the plural wife of Joseph Smith.

Agnes was only used in the chaotic 50 name cycle of 1974 so it’s possible that her origins are more obscure. That said, Agnes was the name of John Taylor’s mother which could explain her origins. Given that there is no other evidence that the names were likely inspired by Joseph’s plural wives, I doubt that this one was either. 

At least my Rhoda appeared safe from that. 

Why will you call her Eve? 

From there, I expected the majority of the names to be scriptural. After all, of the 92 men’s names that have been in rotation since 1965 only TWO cannot be found in Mormon scripture. I know there are fewer women in scriptures than men but surely there were enough for a month or two of temple names. 

Of the 80 unique female names recorded on Temple Name Oracle, only 39 are mentioned in the scriptures. 

22 of the 31 names in the current cycle are scriptural, 18 of the 31 in the original cycle and 23 of the 50 in the 1974 cycle. 

The 1983 and 1993 cycles were the most scripturally dense, 1983 only included one non scriptural name: Eliza. 

The 1993 cycle is currently the only cycle to include 100% scriptural names, though it did use Miriam, Ruth and Naomi twice each to do it. It’s fascinating to me that they choose to repeat names rather than simply keep the scriptural names Priscilla, Hagar, Johannah and Eve from the previous cycle. How those names lost out but Eunice made it through to the next round we’ll never know! 

The scriptural names that have been used every cycle are: Esther, Lydia, Martha, Miriam, Rachel, Rebekah, Ruth. The only other name that has been used every cycle is Emma. 

Many of the names are one verse wonders like 

Claudia who was “greeted” in 2 Tim 4:21, 

or Judith the wife of Esau in Genesis 26:34 

➢ or Lois and Eunice in 2 Tim 1:5, the grandmother and mother of Timothy.

❖ Even some of the most prominent scriptural names have been excluded in recent cycles. Eve only made one appearance in the 1983-1993 cycle (though her name is still included for any initiates whose given name matches the new name of the day). Mary was only included in the first two cycles. 

Some of the names are technically mentioned in the scriptures but are almost surely not scripturally inspired, like 

Zina the son of Shimei in 1 Chronicles 23:10 

or Isabel the harlot of Alma 39:3-4. 

Judith, the Hittite wife of Esau also seems questionable to me. 

Some of the female names that are technically mentioned in the scriptures weren’t even names of people! Looking at you, Ruby and Grace!

So many of the women were simply “wife of” or “mother of.” It seems Johnny Lingo might have had it wrong and it wasn’t cows that determined your worth but the number of verses your temple name earned in the scriptures. Suddenly my five verses weren’t looking too shabby. 

I was happy to see when the queens, prophetesses and priestesses came in force.

❖ The Prophetesses: Deborah (3 cycles), Huldah (2 cycles) and Miriam (all five cycles).

❖ Phoebe the deacon was only absent for 1974-83. 

Esther the queen has never been absent. 

Junia, the apostle, however, has yet to make an appearance. 

I know most women weren’t thrilled to get Huldah as their temple name, but it makes me sad to see that the names of such powerful women as Deborah and Huldah were pulled from the current cycle. Especially when they were traded for names like Camilla, Grace and Ruby. 

Maybe the next cycle will exchange Miriam, Esther and Emma for Dantzel, Pearl and Chastity.

Is there no other way? 

I had grown up in the church, I knew there weren’t a lot of women mentioned in the scriptures. But I had certainly expected that there were enough to cover a few 31-50 name cycles. Were most of the women in the scriptures evil and therefore ineligible? Did the church simply run out of the names of righteous women in scripture and therefore had to fill the gaps with family names? I wanted to compare the numbers. 

Starting with the Bible. 

❖ The Biographical Bible found 1,940 character names in the Old and New Testament.

❖ From a list of women in the Bible I found a total of 100 unique women’s names in the Old Testament and 33 in the New Testament. [These numbers were based off of google searches and removing duplicates in excel, it was not a meticulous process so please don’t cite my numbers, they are only meant to give a rough picture] 

17 of the 100 names in the Old Testament are represented in the temple names and 14 of the 33 New Testament names. 

Now, it could be that some names were excluded because they would not be familiar to the average temple goer or because they were represented as evil in the text. 

Some recognizable names that have never been included are: Jochebed the mother of Moses, Zipporah the wife of Moses, Anna the prophetess at the temple and Junia the apostle. 

In the Book of Mormon, there are 6 women named. 

Three of those women are references to the Biblical matriarchs: Eve, Sarah and Mary, all have been included as temple names in at least one cycle. 

❖ That leaves Sariah, Abish and Isabel. Though Isabel is represented in the temple names, it’s hard for me to imagine that it is in honor of the harlot from Alma.

❖ Abish was included in the two scripture heavy cycles of ‘83 and ’93

Shockingly, Sariah has never been used as a temple name. 

It is possible that Sariah was excluded because her name is so similar to Sarah (a name used in every cycle except the first). However, Naoma and Norma were both included in the ’65 cycle, Naoma was even repeated in the ‘74 cycle with Naomi. Emma and Emmeline also made an appearance together in the ‘74 cycle. I feel like we could handle Sarah and Sariah. {As a side note, the inclusion of Naoma is so bizarre to me, I still can’t help but wonder if it was misheard or misremembered…despite being recorded for two different cycles.} 

Finally, I turned to Doctrine and Covenants. A google search turned up a grand total of 2 women. Emma Hale Smith and Vienna Jacques. Honestly, I didn’t believe it. After much hemming and hawing, I sat down and skimmed the book, searching for names. 

While there are just under 200 men’s names used—119 unique names—there are only 5 women mentioned. 

Three of them were Biblical. 

Google was right. There are two women unique to Doctrine and Covenants mentioned in the 138 sections. 

Only one of them made the temple name list. 

To add further insult to injury, of the five female names of the D&C, Emma, Sarah and Hagar make their appearances in the infamous Section 132. One woman being castigated for resisting polygamy while the other two are used as models of obedient plural wives. What representation. 

There are enough female names in the scriptures to fill out the temple name logs. The 83 and 93 cycles prove that. There are not only more than enough names but there are significant women who have been underutilized or excluded entirely. Abish, Dinah, Deborah, Elizabeth, Huldah and Leah were all removed when the current cycle was released. It is hard not to wonder if the downsizing of prophetesses was intentional. 

You are beginning to see already 

Once I realized how many names were nonscriptural I assumed that the rest would be prominent women from church history. 

Eliza made the list every cycle except the scriptures only one. 

Lucy had been on the list for the last two cycles. 

Emma had managed to be on the list for every cycle in spite of being such a controversial figure in church history. 

I was no expert on church history, much less women in church history, so I figured that many of the names might be unfamiliar to me but that a simple google search would quickly connect them to church history. 

The last thing I expected was to come up empty. To simply not be able to find a significant or obvious connection to the church. When my google searches came up empty, I wondered if the names were simply more “wives of.” I started with listing out wives of church presidents, curious if each would have a wife represented. They didn’t. I added every member of the quorum of the twelve. The assistants to the president. 

I searched each man on google and then the Church Biographical Database, sometimes in desperation I even turned to tracing family lines in Family Search. Tediously, I added the names of their wives, then, when that wasn’t enough, their mothers. Occasionally a name would pop and I would wonder, was this her? When I reached the first presidency and quorum of the 12 serving in 1965 cells started lighting up. 

Coincidentally or not, every member of the big 15 in 1965 has had the name of a wife or a mother used as a temple name. Now, I have to be clear, they were not all used in the 1965 cycle but they have all been used in one cycle or another. 

Could this be a coincidence? Absolutely! But there has not been any other set of 15 so heavily represented. I have to add the disclaimer, I know that some of their family names were Bible names so more likely explained by that connection but the list also included Ethel, May and Camilla—names with little to no other obvious connection to the church. I felt like I might have found something. I wondered what was so special about that board of church leadership that they had wives or mothers represented in the temple names. 

I switched to looking for any representation from the female leadership. I listed out the General Relief Society Presidencies, General Young Women and Primary presidencies.

❖ The names of each member of the 1965 YW’s presidency was used in the 1965 cycle. Their names were: Florence, Margaret and Dorothy and therefore not chosen from being Bible names. 

❖ Now, Florence could also be in reference to the daughter of Heber J Grant

❖ Margaret could be the wife of Lyman White or mother of Melvin J Ballard or Bruce R McConkie (he does seem like the type to get a name represented somewhere)

❖ Dorothy could be the sister of Howard W Hunter. 

We’ll never know. It could have been a random coincidence. 

Let us go down {the rabbit hole}

Now, if you’ve made it this far, buckle up because we’re about to really go off the rails. I was in deep. Searching everywhere. Astonished that I hadn’t found references to the names out of luck or sheer commonness of the name. I was left staring at names like Rita, Carla, Ramona. How could these be such hard names to connect? In desperation I started just looking for any result that came up in the Church Biographical Database for the names I had left. For Carla there was only one entry: Elna Carla Pederson (1898-1984). Nothing about her appeared significant. Sorry Carla. I was stymied. 

I turned to Ramona, there were only three entries 

Ramona Foulger

Blanche Ramona Bywater 

Ramona Stevenson Wilcox. 

Ramona Stevenson Wilcox served with her husband, Joseph J Cannon, as Mission Presidents of the British Isles Mission from 1934-1937. 

There was an elder who also served in the same mission during the same time frame: Elder Gordon Hinckley. 

I couldn’t believe it. I triple checked the dates. Was it possible that somehow, someone had suggested the name of the wife of his mission president? Is this where my other missing names came from? Before you get excited or hopeful (like I certainly was), if that is the secret, it is a secret that will remain hidden. Though I began adding missions and time frames to my spreadsheet, isolating mission presidents for the time frames went well beyond my amateur google sleuthing. If there is a real church historian willing to lend a hand, I will gladly take it. It was a momentary high that led exactly nowhere. 

I was left with 12 names and no strong connection or persuasive explanation for their inclusion on the temple lists. 

We will…rest from our labors for a season 

The truth I was finally forced to accept was that I would never know. 

Even for the names that did have a connection to a general authority, was a mother’s middle name REALLY the most likely explanation? For all I knew, it could have been for a beloved grandmother from some Seventy on some committee. 

We don’t know how the names are selected. Given how the church runs, I mind summons an image of a committee tasked with selecting the names for a new cycle. I imagine them being told to study, ponder and pray about the selection. Perhaps each contributes a name or several, perhaps they pray as they vote for which names to include. Perhaps they are thinking of women who they love or admire. 

I wonder…if such a committee exists, are there women on it? 

It doesn’t seem likely to me. Maybe the next time they create the list, there will be.

Return and Report 

As I have shared my findings–from scripture references to wild theories–with people on their journeys with the church, something has been clear. We felt something about these names. We were disappointed, touched, excited. Sometimes the names felt inspired, sometimes they fell flat or were even triggering. Most of us wanted them to mean something. To be more than a name drawn from a hat. We wanted to know why they were chosen, who they were chosen for. We’re curious and, like so many things in the temple, we have so few answers. 

I wish I knew who Rita was. I wonder if she had any idea that her name would be remembered by countless women whispering a name to their husbands to be. I wish we knew the stories and women behind the names. 

Honestly, I just wish we just remembered the women. Not just as “mother of” or “wife of.” But as people. As prophets, as priestesses, as poets, as queens. 

As so much more than a name whispered through the veil. 

Author bio: After a true, blue Utah Mormon young adulthood—BYU, mission, temple work and temple sealing—J Martinez was a part of the great COVID Exmo Migration of 2020. She now spends her time voraciously consuming audiobooks and exploring new trails with her kiddo.

Exponent II features the work of guest authors writing about issues related to Mormonism and feminism. Submit a guest post Write for Exponent II.

24 Responses

  1. This was fascinating to read. Bravo for all of your research.

    My temple name is one of my least favorite names EVER. Many people like the name, but I just find it unimaginative. I was so disappointed. When I found out it was just based on the day I went to the temple I felt cheated. This thing that was supposed to have such mystery and power was just handed out on an assembly line.

    1. Agreed. I really believed the names were extremely personalized, with Heavenly Father working mysteriously to make sure people received the correct names. While I suppose a true believer will still see a heavenly hand in it, it’s extremely IMpersonal to just hand out the same name to everyone that day. Why is it treated like such a sacred mystery?

  2. This was fascinating to read. Bravo for all of your research.

    My temple name is one of my least favorite names EVER. Many people like the name, but I just find it unimaginative. I was so disappointed. When I found out it was just based on the day I went to the temple I felt cheated. This thing that was supposed to have such mystery and power was just handed out on an assembly line.

  3. Was there ever a Jael in the temple names? She is a badass woman who nailed a man’s head to the ground. (Judges 4-It’s my favorite Bible story. Does that say something disturbing about me? Maybe. I don’t care.) There’s also a Judith in the Apocrypha (also cuts a man’s head off, yet no Primary songs about her faith). My temple name was Ruth. I remember being disappointed–nothing against Ruth, but I never really connected with her story. There were so many other biblical women I would have liked to share a name with. I also assumed names were mostly from the Bible or maybe from church history? I’ve worked in the temple so I knew other names, but I can’t think of any offhand.
    Thanks for your research on this!

  4. This is really interesting research. I don’t understand the symbolism of the temple name at all. If it’s not supposed to be a unique signifier, then what’s the point? Maybe it’s similar to how anciently when people were baptized, they were given a new Christian name to symbolize their new life. But in a temple context, it’s more about calling people at the resurrection. God knows who we all are, so again what’s the point? And the fact that the name being told to the husband and the whole veil ceremony means what? I seriously do not understand why the church bothers with half-hearted changes to sexist practices. It’s clear they are committed to maintaining eternal male supremacy, so why do anything to placate “the feminists”? It’s very bizarre

  5. I appreciate how the Catholic church integrates “confirmation names” into their religious ritual. According to AI:
    When choosing a Catholic confirmation name for a girl, you can consider a saint’s name or the name of a Christian leader from the Bible. You can also choose the name of your confirmation sponsor, who can serve as a role model for how to live a Catholic life. Some popular confirmation girls names include:
    – Mary
    – Teresa
    – Catherine
    – St. Cecelia (the second most popular Catholic saint and patroness of music)
    – Therese of Lislieux
    – St. Teresa of Avila
    Some say that it’s a good idea to research saint names and choose one that matches the person’s personality or spiritual goals.

    I absolutely LOVE the idea of thoughtfully selecting our own name for our own reasons and bringing it to the temple with us. We do all this family history research, why not encourage women to choose a name of an ancestor? Or not. So much about the temple is “one-way” communication, where we just sit and take in the script without any participation or creativity or ownership. Let’s do better.

    p.s. last time I went to an endowment session (2 months ago) the new name was the CLEARLY the name of a recently-deceased Apostle’s wife.

  6. My temple name is closely related to my given middle name. As in they share the same meaning. I appreciated that it wasn’t something ‘weird’, but for a while felt I could no longer share my name’s definition with anyone, that’s how close it was. And delving into the history and definitions and perceptions of names has long been a favored hobby of mine. Even now, years after letting my recommend lapse and attending church only on Christmas I’m still hesitant to share what my name was/is.

  7. Fantastic research! Thank you. I assume this is thee list used for the entire world? How sad if your new name was not easily pronounced in your native tongue.

    1. That’s a really good question – do they use these names everywhere? Imagine as an English speaker if you were given a Chinese name that you couldn’t see written down, only pronounced once or twice – and the stress to try to remember that forever!

    2. It is permitted for an ordinance worker to write the name down for the patron, and then destroy the piece of paper. Of course, a new patron would have to ask, and probably would not think to do so.
      Obviously, for the deaf this is a necessity.

  8. Thanks for this article. Just a quick edit: Russell Nelson’s first wife was named Dantzel, not Danzel. She was my grandma’s sister.

    1. I’m the one who posted this for our guest author – I’ll go update that! Good catch that she and I didn’t see. Women’s names should be recorded right in our history. Can you imagine a prophet’s name being misspelled?

  9. I thought my name Abish was special. As a covert who tried to save my family I felt a connection with the character in the Book of Mormon. I felt a tingle of pride when we’d study her. I truly felt it was divinely inspired for me.

    I was so disappointed to learn recently that 1. There was even a list 2. She was taken off of it!?! Just sad that she was cast aside.

    At a recent exmo book club we were discussing new names. A couple girls had left as teens so they didn’t have a new name. In conversation they decided they would choose their own. The conversation was funny, but in a way empowering too. Many women discussed choosing a new new name.

    I am keeping mine, whether it gets used in the Resurrection or not..

  10. Recommend ignoring the probable origin and choosing a kick-ass character from history who shares the name (spelling variations allowed), with whom you can feel some kind of common cause or attitude, and who would definitely not be approved of. That’s pretty much how I reconciled to mine anyhow.

    As an aside: the temple worker who gave me my name had some weird emphasis in pronunciation. To be sure what it was precisely, I used temple name oracle, just so that I could see it written down. For all I knew it could have been something weird and invented. I assume her odd emphasis was due to what would now be considered a nonstandard spelling.

  11. I went through the temple in 1993, and now my name makes a little more sense in the larger context – they were all scripture names that year. When I first heard it, I thought “What?! Who?” Thirty years later, well, I still say that …

  12. Just a male perspective. I was endowed in the 80’s. I found out very quickly that it was shared with others receiving their own endowment that day, the dead the following day. That has, of course, changed and the same name is used for the living and the dead. My own new name has not been used for quite some time. It was also not a name I was familiar with before receiving it.
    I view it, along with much in the endowment, as symbolic. The initiatory ordinances, along with receiving a new name, are symbolic of the higher ordinances that lead to exaltation.
    We can read in the New Testament Revelation 2:17 and in D&C 130:10-11 of a white stone and a new name. The new name we receive in the temple is symbolic of the one we may receive in the resurrection.
    So, it has never bothered me that they are shared, that the repeat, and that they are not received via revelation.

    1. Respectfully, it is irrelevant that you are not bothered by it as a man. The power dynamics in place simply cannot be ignored in how these new names affect women. How they are impersonal, yet supposedly so sacred. How so many of them are not even scriptural. How their husband has the authority to hear their new name, but they do not share the same power in hearing his. I have seen women be abused by men who hold their new name over their head as blackmail. I’m glad it does not bother you, but the way new names are handled disproportionately affects women both in how it makes clear the disparity in representation in scriptures and in the power dynamics between men and women in the temple ceremony as it exists today. The fact that a man is not bothered by how new names are handled in temple ceremonies is nothing new to us women.

  13. For years I had been told that I was named after my mother (whose name doesn’t even resemble Melissa), and that I would understand one day when I went to the temple. Even after taking out my endowments and “getting it”, I still couldn’t believe that such a non-scriptural name would have ever been used. I hated my new name of Ruth (it reminded me of a particularly crotchety old aunt), but was impressed that at least she had a cool story and her own book in the Bible. After searching the Temple Oracle site, I discovered that many feminine, pioneer-y names had been used during the time my mom would have gone to the temple. I’m still not sure of any well-known Melissas in church history, but it’s listed on the website, so…???

  14. I had wondered where mine came from, because I heard that “the names are all Biblical” but my new name isn’t. So, now I know and also know that “all the names being biblical” was only temporary. Thanks for doing the research. It was much more enlightening than just the list.

    I found out very quickly that the names are not really secret, because the other women were hinting about how special that I got the new name I did. So, I gathered that all the women knew my “secret” new name. Not that the women were saying it, just saying how special. And it is the name of someone I love, except she never ever went by that name. So, kind of like my sister has never, ever used her first name and even legally uses only her middle name with maybe the first initial in case they are comparing to her birth certificate and nobody but close family even knows she has a first name. So, special but not really that my new name is shared by a loved one. But it is also such an old fashioned name that you just cannot picture anything but an old lady being called that.

  15. This was fascinating! Thank you for your research. BTW, my husband’s grandmother was named Naoma. When I first heard it, I thought I was just hearing Naomi with an accent, but nope, Naoma it was. So I think that was a real name that existed in Mormon communities a few generations back. Maybe one of the Naomas of the time was related to a General Authority who threw it into the list? Or alternatively, maybe it was Naomi with a typo, and some of the people who got that name while doing temple work liked it and then named their kids that?

  16. Oh geez. At first, they were ALL named Sarah? SARAH??? And I assume all the men were named Abraham? The preparation for polygamy was built in from the very start, wasn’t it?

    Also, on a personal level, my name was Leah, and in conjunction with the internet’s confusion regarding Star Wars, I spent years trying to remember if they pronounced it Lay-a or Lee-ya, and if it would matter in the resurrection! 😂

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