ST. GEORGE, UTAH -- If you’re moving to Utah, you’d better bone up on the back story behind your name before someone politely explains the you who you are not.
I hauled my gray ponytail and presumed vanilla name to St. George two years ago -- a graduate of NYU, not BYU – hunting a friendly, affordable place to retire where breathing didn’t mean chewing California pollution.
You do know you’ve got a famous name, right? First, it was a CVS pharmacist, then an AC repairer and recently Margaret, who owns a used bookstore in Hurricane.
It seems nearly everyone – the two Mormons of every three Utah residents – educates me on my namesake who was the third prophet, tucked behind Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, in establishing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
I found I had way more in common with him than my other namesakes such as the retired wide receiver for the San Francisco Forty-Niners and the bass player for Duran Duran. Their fans mistakenly hounded me for autographs in California.
The prophet Taylor died on the same month and day as my birth. My family roots are in Ireland, where he preached. He had been a Methodist as have I. He worked the fields; I milked Wisconsin cows.
He was shot several times in the 1844 riot that killed the faith’s founder; only Brooklyn fistfights for me. He liked to tell stories, wrote a book and edited newspapers; I spent my career wordsmithing for newspapers and hospitals. My wife says we look alike; Prophet Taylor had eight wives, so I’ll cut my one and only some slack on her dubious claim.
Utah is a Joseph’s coat of names with some, such as Romney, Huntsman and Eccles, as iconic as Arches National Park. But the richest reside with wayfarers and byways.
You can thank explorers, miners and the roughnecks who built the transcontinental railroad for arcane and frisky map monikers such as Drunkards Wash (in coal country), Peter Sinks (a frightfully cold natural sinkhole at 8,100 feet) and Mollies Nipple (there are several, supposedly named by explorer John Kitchen to honor his wife. Wow.).
I’ve encountered a Walmart checker named Erda, a credit union teller named Skyla, and brothers Bridger and Sawyer. I’ve read obituaries for Zelpha Roundy and a Sanpete County official with the handle Orange Frederick Peel. Yep, Orange Peel.
Some names flow from the Book of Mormon, some from partial melding of ancestral names and others, I surmise, from romantic dashboard-light memories of artists and lyrics of the 1980s -- think Journey meets U2.
When I grew fatigued over my fortunate accident of being a non-Mormon sharing a prophet’s name, I asked my conversational partner if he could name all the prophets. I now know there are 17, including four Smiths.
Yet another Smith saved a starving Mormon settlement by suggesting the eating of raw potatoes. So was born St. George, my home and one of the fastest growing communities in the nation.
And while my yearning for fuller Utah immersion includes attending the annual Ute Stampede Rodeo in Nephi (where the mayor’s name is Glade Nielson), my days of describing myself as just another John are history.