The name of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is derived from an 1838 revelation church founder Joseph Smith said he received. Church leaders have long emphasized the church's full name (though more especially since 2018), and have resisted the application of informal or shortened names, especially those which omit "Jesus Christ". These informal and shortened names include the "Mormon Church", the "LDS Church", and the "Church of the Latter-day Saints".
Historical names of the church The LDS Church traces its founding to April 6, 1830, when Smith and five other men formally established the Church of Christ. The church was known by this name from 1830 to 1834. In the 1830s, the fact that a number of U.S. churches, including some Congregational churches and Restoration Movement churches, also used the name "Church of Christ" caused a considerable degree of confusion. On May 3, 1834, the church adopted a resolution that it would be known thereafter as "The Church of the Latter Day Saints". At various times the church was also referred to as "The Church of Jesus Christ", "The Church of God", and "The Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints".
Adoption of the current name In the late 1830s, Smith founded a new headquarters in Far West, Missouri. At Far West on April 26, 1838, Smith recorded a revelation from God renaming the organization the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints". The church was known by this name until after Smith's death in 1844; occasionally the name would be written with a hyphen between the words "Latter" and "Day". After Smith's death, competing Latter Day Saint denominations organized under the leadership of a number of successors. The largest of these, led by Brigham Young, continued using "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" until incorporation on February 8, 1851, by the legislature of the provisional State of Deseret, when the church standardized the spelling of its name as "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", a hyphenated "Latter-day", and a British-style lower-case "d". In January 1855, the legislature of Utah Territory re-enacted the charter which incorporated the church under this name. In 1876, the church issued a new edition of the Doctrine and Covenants which contains the text of significant revelations received by Joseph Smith. In this new edition—the first revision since before Smith's death—the capitalization and hyphenation of the church's name in the 1838 revelation to Smith was changed to reflect the name format the church had since adopted:
[A]nd unto all the elders and people of my Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, scattered abroad in all the world; For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The definite article "The" was not capitalized in D&C 115:4 of the 1876 edition; it was not until the 1921 edition that it was capitalized. Until the late-20th century, church publications inconsistently capitalized "The" in the name of the church in running text. Today, church publications invariably capitalize "The" in all contexts. Today, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" is a registered trademark owned by the LDS Church. In contrast, "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" is a public-domain name and is used by some smaller Latter Day Saint denominations, including the Strangites.
Meaning The church teaches that its name is a significant indicator of its origin and mission. The following teachings have been given on the meanings of the various components of the church's name:
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