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VIRGINIA - Why is the church Warning other websites like Mormon Stories Podcast to not use the word Mormon in their name even though the Church embraced the name for so many years?
JOEL - The name "Mormon" was a term first coined by people not of our faith who wanted a short, derogatory name to give members of the LDS Church, taking the word from the Book of Mormon. In the early 1830's the public began to first use the term "Mormonites" or "Mormons". They were used as early as 1831 as seen in a New York Newspaper article titled "The Mormonites".
The Church members themselves began using the word "Mormon" in the mid to late 1830's after the term lost its derogatory meaning. That is why the Church continued to use it since it was a short easy way to refer to the Church. Church leaders have for a long time emphasized that the correct name of the church should be used, but the request became official when President Nelson made the correction a permanent thing, when he said "to remove the Lord's name from the Lord's Church is a major victory for Satan".
So now even though the church is trying to distance itself from the Mormon identifier the word "Mormon" is still trademarked by the church. The name is still used by the media and the public, and is kept in the name of the Book of Mormon and for historical references like the Mormon Trail or Mormon Pioneers. Since people looking for information on the Church mostly enter "Mormon" into their search engines, the Church has to accommodate that reality. Most news stories use" Mormon" or "Mormons" regularly, so Church statements, positions, policies and stories are more likely to be picked up by casual Internet searchers. For these reasons the church maintains the trademark and feels it has an obligation to protect the "Mormon" term as a unique identifier to prevent confusion about what the Church is and isn't. The Church has been involved in a few lawsuits over the issue, but it first has politely asked those other websites, critical of the Church, to remove any of the trademarked materials, including the term "Mormon" and similar icons, fonts, and colors that appear to mimic those that are trademarked by the Church.
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