1. Russell M. Nelson, “The Correct Name of the Church,” Ensign 48, no. 11 (November 2018): 87–88, italics original.

2. Peggy Fletcher Stack, Scott D. Pierce, and David Noyce, “Members ‘Offend’ Jesus and Please the Devil When They Use the Term ‘Mormon,’ President Nelson Says,” Salt Lake Tribune, October 7, 2018, https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2018/10/07/members-offend-jesus/.

3. Nelson, “Correct Name of the Church,” 87.

4. Brady McCombs, “Mormon No More: Tabernacle Choir Renamed in Big Church Shift,” Las Vegas Sun, October 5, 2018, https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/oct/05/mormon-no-more-tabernacle-choir-renamed-in-big-chu/.

5. Jana Riess, “Why ‘Mormon’ Is Now a Four-Letter Word and Other General Conference Takeaways,” Religion News Services, October 8, 2018, https://religionnews.com/2018/10/08/why-mormon-is-now-a-four-letter-word-and-other-general-conference-takeaways/.

6. Among works that use data science on Church topics, see Gordon Shepherd and Gary Shepherd, A Kingdom Transformed: Early Mormonism and the Modern LDS Church, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2016); Stephen Thomas Betts, “‘General Conference Talk’: Style Variation and the Styling of Identity in Latter-day Saint General Conference Oratory” (master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 2019); John Hilton III, Emily K. Hyde, and McKenna Grace Trussel, “The Teachings of Church Leaders Regarding the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ: 1852–2018,” BYU Studies Quarterly 59, no. 1 (2020): 49–80; Nicholas J. Frederick, “‘Having Many Things to Write to You’: Biblical Intertextuality in Joseph Smith’s Two Colesville Letters,” Journal of Mormon History 47, no. 2 (April 2021): 23–47; Jonathan Stapley, “Invoking the Name of the Lord: A Quantitative Study,” Journal of Mormon History 47, no. 4 (October 2021): 1–21; and Quentin Spencer, “What Don’t The Prophets Say Anymore?: A Text Analysis of General Conference, 1942–2020” (paper presented at Sunstone Symposium, online, 2021), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV8sQ4nTC0.

7. LDS General Conference Corpus, https://www.lds-general-conference.org/.

8. In a technical sense, Jesus Christ is both a name and a title. His name was Jesus (Yeshua) and his title Christ, the Anglicized version of Χριστός (which comes from the Hebrew word for Messiah, or, more literally, “anointed with oil”). For our purposes, we use Jesus Christ as a name, not a name and title, throughout this article, since Christ is generally considered part of Jesus’s name (including by President Nelson).

9. In fact, as Stapley points out, the practice of closing all talks “in the name of Jesus Christ” evolved over time and was standardized in our familiar usage only “in the latter half of the twentieth century.” Stapley, “Invoking the Name of the Lord,” 2.

10. To be sure that we make a fair comparison across the long span of this study, all totals have been normalized. To normalize a word count, we first get a total of all instances of a particular word (for example, Lord) uttered in conference during a particular year. We then divide that total by the number of all words spoken in conference for that year. We then multiply that percentage by 1,000,000. The result is the normalized count for that word and year.

Thus, and for example, if our graph suggests that speakers uttered the word Lord 4,000 times in a particular year’s conferences, that should be understood as 4,000 utterances per 1,000,000 spoken words. Linguists prefer to illustrate results per million because the very tiny percentages these investigations produce belie the importance of a content word’s frequency. We might be tempted to see a result of 0.4 percent for the word Lord as insignificant. Since, however, much of spoken English involves what are called “filler” words (articles, prepositions, pronouns, and so forth), a very few “content” words (nouns, for example) convey most of the meaning in any given sentence. As a result, most scholars show results per million words spoken (rather than one hundred, which would give a typical percentage). We have followed that practice here.

11. See “New Logo Re-emphasizes Official Name of Church,” Church News, December 23, 1995, https://www.thechurchnews.com/1995/12/23/23254586/new-logo-re-emphasizes-official-name-of-church. For a brief sketch along these lines, see K. Shane Goodwin, “The History of the Name of the Savior’s Church: A Collaborative and Revelatory Process,” BYU Studies Quarterly 58, no. 3 (2019): 38–39. The gap between President Benson’s and President Hinckley’s tenure represents President Howard W. Hunter’s relatively short time as Prophet.

12. “Church Emphasizes Its Official Name,” Ensign 31, no. 5 (May 2001): 110.

13. John Taylor, “Religious Confliction in the World—the Gospel of Jesus Christ,” Joseph Smith Foundation, Journal of Discourses Online, accessed December 18, 2023, https://www.josephsmithfoundation.org/journalofdiscourses/speakers/john-taylor/religious-confliction-in-the-world-the-gospel-of-jesus-christ/, italics added.

14. Quentin L. Cook, “The Lord Is My Light,” Ensign 45, no. 5 (May 2015): 63, italics added.

15. The transition from Jesus to Christ is also a topic of academic investigation on the early Christian Church in the centuries after his death. As the generation that knew him passed away, the early Church also began to prefer the title Christ over the name Jesus. See, for example, Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ: The Origins of the New Testament Images of Christ (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000). For similar results, see Spencer, “What Don’t the Prophets Say Anymore?”

16. “50 Names and Titles of Jesus Christ,” Come unto Christ, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/believe/jesus/50-names-for-jesus.

17. Our list of twenty-four includes (in order of total usage in general conference—more on this below): (1) Lord; (2) Savior; (3) Redeemer; (4) Son of God; (5) the Almighty; (6) Son of Man; (7) Only Begotten Son; (8) Creator; (9) Beloved Son; (10) Son of the Living God; (11) Messiah; (12) King of Kings; (13) Mediator; (14) Lamb of God; (15) Good Shepherd; (16) Prince of Peace; (17) Bread of Life; (18) Holy One of Israel; (19) Chief Cornerstone; (20) Immanuel; (21) King of the Jews; (22) Alpha and Omega; (23) Author and Finisher of Our Faith; (24) Fountain of Living Waters.

18. Orson Hyde, “The Right to Lead the Church, etc.,” Joseph Smith Foundation, Journal of Discourses Online, accessed December 18, 2023, https://www.josephsmithfoundation.org/journalofdiscourses/speakers/orson-hyde/the-right-to-lead-the-church-etc/.

19. Camille West, “New First Presidency Speaks to Members Worldwide,” Church News, January 16, 2018, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/new-first-presidency-speaks-to-members-worldwide?lang=eng.

20. Russell M. Nelson, “Sisters’ Participation in the Gathering of Israel,” Ensign 48, no. 11 (November 2018): 70.

21. Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Missionary Work: Sharing What Is in Your Heart,” Ensign 49, no. 5 (May 2019): 16.

22. Nelson, “Correct Name of the Church,” 88, italics original.

Joseph Corey

BYU Studies Publications