Town names something to think about
Lee Benson
NEPHI AND MORONI — There's one thing that does not easily escape your notice when traveling through the countryside at roughly the same speed as dial-up Internet:
The names of places.
For one thing, you realize that something actually exists between the "entering" and "leaving" signs. For another, you find yourself making assumptions about the people who settled the place by what they decided to call it.
Take Nephi and Moroni, for instance, two towns near each other here in central Utah. It seems pretty obvious a religious fervor gripped the early Mormon settlers, at least some of them, to prompt them to name their towns after the first book and the last book in the Book of Mormon, respectively.
You can get from Nephi to Moroni in 500 pages, or by traveling 22 miles up Highway 132.
Nephi and Moroni are not alone. Millard, Juab and Sanpete — the three counties I have traversed so far on the way to the Colorado border — are full of names linked to either the Book of Mormon or the Bible.
And yes, you can get a clear view of Ephraim from Mount Nebo.
There's even a Jerusalem. It was settled in the mid-1800s between the towns of Freedom and Fountain Green in Sanpete County, but for some reason it never made it. It's a ghost town now and in light of what's going on in the Middle East, how's that for irony? A Jerusalem nobody wants.
As near as I can tell, the people who live in towns named for religious people, places and things seem to be taking it in stride.
Alan Gibson, publisher of The Times-News in Nephi, just shrugged when I asked him about living in a place named after a Book of Mormon book. "We're used to it around here," he said. "The church people think, 'Oh it's wonderful;' a heathen like me thinks, 'Well, that's the way it is."'
I heard of no referendums for a name change.
At the Nephi library, Barbara Lovell, the head librarian and a native Nephite, said they'll change the name over her dead body — and that's despite the fact that every salesman or out-of-towner who calls on the library pronounces the town name one of two ways: Nep-hi or Nef-ee.
But never Nee-fie.
"Those of us who have been here all our lives just laugh about it," said Barbara.
Recent comments
I think it is time to change the name of West Valley to Laman and...
Back to Utah | June 30, 2008 at 5:51 p.m.
Obviously, he has never been to Jerusalem! Out of all the places...
Rose Holladay | June 29, 2008 at 5:41 p.m.
