A man named Alma - Book of Mormon Evidence?

[Hagoth]

One of the "evidences" of the veracity of the Book of Mormon that has been endlessly hammered into our heads is the argument that Joseph Smith would NEVER have named a man Alma. It's a woman's name, for crying out loud.

But check out the popularity of Alma as a male name in the United States. Critics of the BoM are always being accused of presentism. Looks like that knife cuts both ways.

AlmaName.JPG (29.68 KiB) Viewed 5840 times

[consiglieri]

Nice find, Hagoth!

Another thing is that part 1 of the apologetic is to set the stage by saying how the critics howled derisively over how the Book of Mormon could be so stupid as to have not one, but two, men in it named Alma--an obviously woman's name!

This set-up is good for dramatic effect, but when I actually went back and tried to find any such critic howling over the name Alma in the Book of Mormon, I was unable to find any.

And then I noticed that no footnotes or sources were given for this part of the apologists' argument.

I am thinking maybe there were no such howls of protest over a man named Alma in the Book of Mormon . . . because it was completely heard of to name men Alma in the time it came forth.

Take for instance this from an Ensign article in 2000 titled "Mounting Evidence for the Book of Mormon."

The appearance of the two men named Alma in the Book of Mormon has occasioned much comment from critics. They observe that Alma is a woman’s name and Latin rather than Hebrew. (Many recognize the phrase alma mater, which means “beneficent mother” and refers to the school from which someone has graduated.) They are correct, of course. If Joseph Smith knew the name Alma at all in the early 19th century, he would have known it as a woman’s name in Latin. Recent documentary finds demonstrate, however, that Alma also occurs as a Semitic masculine personal name in the ancient Near East—just as it does in the Book of Mormon.39

https://lds.org/ensign/2000/01/mounting ... n?lang=eng

1. Note first that Daniel C. Peterson provides no source for his generalized statement that the name Alma in the Book of Mormon "has occasioned much comment from critics." Well, it would unlikely be any critics contemporary with the Book of Mormon's production, as they would know of other men in the area named Alma.

2. But unfortunately, Daniel C. Peterson once again goes too far in his zeal, crossing the bridge into the treacherous territory of lying, when he states, "If Joseph Smith knew the name Alma at all in the early 19th century, he would have known it as a woman's name in Latin."

I believe this is tantamount to saying there were no men named Alma of whom Joseph Smith could have been aware. This is simply untrue, and Daniel C. Peterson should be ashamed of himself for getting carried away once again in a fit of apologetic apoplexy.

[moksha]

I think the most famous person with that name was Alma Mater. Apparently, he was associated with a large number of universities. Legend has it that he was so likable that as he aged, people would refer to him as "my old Alma Mater".

[SincereInquirer]

One of the "evidences" of the veracity of the Book of Mormon that has been endlessly hammered into our heads is the argument that Joseph Smith would NEVER have named a man Alma. It's a woman's name, for crying out loud.

Well, Even The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been giving males the name Alma since at least 1965. Appears that at present it typically happens on the 7th day of every month. Likely not widely discussed on Sundays, but knowing it might just get you into heaven...

[Hagoth]

Another thing is that part 1 of the apologetic is to set the stage by saying how the critics howled derisively over how the Book of Mormon could be so stupid as to have not one, but two, men in it named Alma--an obviously woman's name!

And it turns out that the apologists are only hearing the echoes of their own derisive howling. Strawmen can be pretty funny. If they only had a brain.

[Reuben]

One of the "evidences" of the veracity of the Book of Mormon that has been endlessly hammered into our heads is the argument that Joseph Smith would NEVER have named a man Alma. It's a woman's name, for crying out loud.

But check out the popularity of Alma as a male name in the United States. Critics of the BoM are always being accused of presentism. Looks like that knife cuts both ways.

AlmaName.JPG

I'm sorry, but I have to judge this evidence as very weak, for a few reasons. I would love to see stronger evidence, though.

1. Extrapolation.

The graph doesn't go back to the 1820s, just 1880, so any inference from it must be an extrapolation to 60 years prior. It could be that Alma was a common enough male name that Joseph knew it as one, but it could also have been nonexistent as a male name. I lean toward "rare" because the previous data point is lower, but I can't believe that very strongly because we have only two data points, and because of the next reason.

2. Monte Carlo variance.

Viewing naming babies as a sampling process, variance in the tails of the name distribution for a given year must be very high. Alma is far into the tails, estimated at 0.0044% of the population. (Yes, it's just an estimate. It's unlikely that they have data for anywhere close to all 1.1 million male babies born in the US in 1890.) This makes any extrapolation backward almost meaningless.

3. Utah.

It's fairly likely that all of the handful of Almas reflected in this site's numbers came from Mormon families, where Alma was (by 1880) regarded as a normal male name.

Because of Mormon involvement in genealogy and indexing, it's possible that Utah babies are overrepresented in the data, too.

[moksha]

While I was looking for people named Alma in the 1820 US Census for Alleghany County, I ran across this interesting tidbit.
-- December 20, 1820 – Missouri imposes a $1 bachelor tax on unmarried men between 21 and 50. --
Made me wonder whether Joseph Smith would have been entitled to a tax rebate.

Incidentally, you would need to go to someplace called Ancestry.com in you wanted to search for those Census records.

BTW, the name Coriantumr peaked in Knossos during the Neolithic Era.

[Archimedes]

What kind of hits do you get for the name "Zelph"?

[moksha]

BTW, the name Coriantumr peaked in Knossos during the Neolithic Era.

Don't forget about the second peak in 1947 when Coriantumr Christiansen was born in Scipio, Utah. He served honorably in the Iowa-Dubuque Mission and later became a High Priest in the Levan, Utah 1st Ward. He was married for time and eternity to Alma Allred in the Manti Temple in 1968. They had three sons Gilead, Zelph, and Shule, along with two daughters Deseret, and LaRee.

[Hagoth]

One of the "evidences" of the veracity of the Book of Mormon that has been endlessly hammered into our heads is the argument that Joseph Smith would NEVER have named a man Alma. It's a woman's name, for crying out loud.

But check out the popularity of Alma as a male name in the United States. Critics of the BoM are always being accused of presentism. Looks like that knife cuts both ways.

AlmaName.JPG

I'm sorry, but I have to judge this evidence as very weak, for a few reasons. I would love to see stronger evidence, though.

1. Extrapolation.

The graph doesn't go back to the 1820s, just 1880, so any inference from it must be an extrapolation to 60 years prior. It could be that Alma was a common enough male name that Joseph knew it as one, but it could also have been nonexistent as a male name. I lean toward "rare" because the previous data point is lower, but I can't believe that very strongly because we have only two data points, and because of the next reason.

2. Monte Carlo variance.

Viewing naming babies as a sampling process, variance in the tails of the name distribution for a given year must be very high. Alma is far into the tails, estimated at 0.0044% of the population. (Yes, it's just an estimate. It's unlikely that they have data for anywhere close to all 1.1 million male babies born in the US in 1890.) This makes any extrapolation backward almost meaningless.

3. Utah.

It's fairly likely that all of the handful of Almas reflected in this site's numbers came from Mormon families, where Alma was (by 1880) regarded as a normal male name.

Because of Mormon involvement in genealogy and indexing, it's possible that Utah babies are overrepresented in the data, too.

Good points Reuben.
What got me started on this was reading about a conversation, I believe between Consiglieri and Peterson, in which Peterson admitted to having seen evidence that Alma was a man's name that in Joseph's time and region, and had looked the other way. I can't recall the details. If Consiglieri is reading this I hope you can shed some light.

[Hagoth]

This is interesting. Names that do NOT even show up in this name registry because they are not among the most common 1000 male names:

Nephi
Lehi
Helaman
Ether
Moroni

Names that do show up but also appear to have rapidly fallen out of favor after the 19th century: Ammon and Enos.

If Alma was used exclusively by Mormons in the 1880s its popularity should have increased over time along with the number of Mormons. I have known people with the names listed above but even with millions of Mormons in the US these names are still are not popular enough to register on the charts. In other words, Alma was a more common male name at the end of the 19th century than any of the more popular BoM names are today.