#the main division happened when the founder of the church died - the main idea when this church was founded was that

[pagesofkenna]

Here's a question that's been bugging me since the dawn of time: where does the word Mormon come from? Is it a self identifier? Is it a cruel nickname? Like just in a general sense why is this the word. Is it okay?

Same vein, are there specific "latter day" saints to which the name of the church refers? Or is "latter day" kind of like "(revised edition)"?

so 'Mormon' refers to 'The Book of Mormon' which is another book of scripture that this church uses. without going into the whole story (tho I can if you're interested!) the founder of the church claimed to have a vision about the location of another historical record, which he found and then, with divine help, translated into English

(also, I'm using 'claims to' language because, while this is all stuff I believe in to varying degrees, I want to stick to the provable facts)

the Book of Mormon purports to be a collection of journals and historical records, mostly regarding religious experiences, mostly taking place in the Americas. it says it was compiled by a prophet named Mormon - thus the title

SO. at the time the church was founded and the Book of Mormon was being translated/published, people referred to those who believed it was a true historical record as 'Mormons'. since then the term has gone through a series of stages of 'self identifier' and 'nickname we're OK with' and 'nickname we're not OK with' (in case you're worried, I don't believe it was ever understood to be a slur)

recently the church organization has tried to pull away from using 'Mormon' as a self identifier. I don't know all the information, but from what I gather this is partially due to the fact that not all people who use the Book of Mormon in their religious practice follow the official church's practices. There's a few dozen 'Mormon' splinter groups... mostly hyper-conservative, secluded, super sexist and/or racist, and tbh pretty culty (if you're hearing about modern Mormon forced marriages, or doomsday militia stuff, those are groups that use the Book of Mormon in their religious service, but aren't actually endorsed by the official church organization)

the official name of the church I actually attend is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. this is the main group of 'Mormons' that exist today; most of the time, if someone talks about 'the Mormon church' they're probably referencing the LDS church. the term comes from the idea that this is supposed to be the church that Christ himself founded when he was alive, but renewed again in modern times (so, 'Latter Day' is literally 'revised edition' lol, but not a revised from the church's initial founding in the 1800s). I think there are some splinter Mormon groups who try to use the term 'latter day', but 'LDS' specifically refers to the 'official' church

tl;dr - neither term is offensive or anything, but there are some people in the LDS church who don't like being called Mormon, and some people who call themselves Mormon who aren't affiliated with the LDS church (also some LDS people who insist on still being called Mormons because it's ridiculous not to have a one-word shorthand like literally everyone else does)