Abstract: A narrator may choose to provide or withhold the name of a character for many reasons. This article hypothesizes that Mormon intentionally omitted the name of two key characters, a Lamanite king and queen. Both feature in his narration of the mission to the Lamanites and the miraculous conversion it inspires, as recounted in the book of Alma. While it is not possible to know exactly what information Mormon and other record keepers of the Book of Mormon had or preserved, it is at least plausible that Mormon might have intentionally omitted the name of these two Lamanites. Namelessness invites the reader to encounter and re-encounter the gospel in a story simultaneously historic and symbolic, at once particular and universal. The intentional absence of these names emphasizes, instead, the new name the converted Lamanites would take upon themselves and points the reader to the name of Jesus Christ.





It is, perhaps, an intuitive modern assumption that unnamed characters are less important, and yet, there are several memorable unnamed characters in the Book of Mormon. While it is possible that that their names were unavailable in an editor’s records, there are significant literary reasons why an editor or author might intentionally withhold a character’s name. This paper explores the possibility that the namelessness of a Lamanite king and the Lamanite queen depicted in Alma 19–24 contributes to the theological messages in those chapters. After a theoretical discussion on the use of namelessness in the Book of Mormon and a historical sketch of the likely names [Page 198]of a brief succession of Lamanite kings, this paper will propose that Mormon may have left the high king over all the Lamanites unnamed to better create a symbolic model for readers to follow and provide an extra emphasis on the new name, Anti-Nephi-Lehi, that the people would take upon themselves. This name, I propose, ties these converts to the past colony of the people of Zeniff. The Lamanite converts chose a new name for their people and their king in response to experiencing Christ’s atoning power. This paper similarly postulates that Mormon may have intentionally left King Lamoni’s wife, the queen, nameless to model how we should respond with faith to experiences we do not understand and to emphasize the name of the Savior through her visionary experience. Both of these accounts powerfully testify of Christ’s mercy and his power to save.1

A Literary Reason: Structure and Significance

Although the first Lamanite king mentioned during the watershed Nephite mission to the Lamanites2 is named early in the narrative, very few other Lamanites during this timeframe are mentioned by name. The missing names are curious in a text that highlights personal aspects of Lamanite culture and demonstrates the deep personal relationships between Mosiah’s missionary sons and the Lamanite people. In fact, before the nameless king conceives of the new name Anti-Nephi-Lehi, there are only three named Lamanites in these accounts: King Lamoni, Abish a “Lamanitish woman” (Alma 19:16 ), and Antiomno (Alma 20:4). Of these, only Lamoni and Abish participate in the storyline.<a id="footnote3anc" href="#footnote3sym" title="3.