The word “anti” came about from there not being a more appropriate word to render in the translation.

Had it been translated today, it would have likely been “A-Nephi-Lehies”

Remember that all of the non-Nephites were Lamanites, Lemulites, etc, that were all mixed.

But instead they wanted to be Lehites, but instead to honor the recognition that they were not Nephites, they chose the name Anit-Nephi-Lehies to indicate that they were Lehites, but not Nephites.

“Have you inquired of the Lord”?

I noticed, thumbing through the index, that there is a land called “Lehi-Nephi”. (See http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/64 and http://scriptures.lds.org/en/search?search=lehi-nephi&do=Search ). The entry for land of Nephi (http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/35) gives us this: “Land of Lehites’ first inheritance, also a smaller part of that land, sometimes called land of Lehi-Nephi”. This is the very land that Zeniff was overzealous to obtain.

Given that, it appears to me that the King of the Lamanites, who was willing to forsake his entire kingdom to know God, forsook the name of his ancestors and decided to name himself after the land he dwelt in. Thus, “Anti-Lehi-Nephi” would mean, “The ruler of the land of Lehi-Nephi”. In that light, that name makes much more sense to me. The only barrier to this is that the name he took on him was “Anti-Nephi-Lehi”, which transposes the name of the land which which we are familiar.

Still, there’s no indication in the Book of Mormon itself that these folks “still held negative feelings for Nephi and Lehi”. Indeed, much of the preaching that Ammon and Aaron do is specifically to correct the ‘traditions of their fathers’, which those Lamanites who convert do abandon in favor of ‘the traditions of the Nephites’ (cf. Alma 18:38-40; 21:17; 23:3-5)

Also, there is no other example in the Book of Mormon of part or all of a personal name being translated into English, with the possible exceptions of those that Joseph Smith rendered to match what we have in the Bible (‘Jesus’, ‘Mary’, ‘John’, etc.).

Finally, the last two points above — that every person whose name begins with “Anti” is a ruler of some sort, and that the *anti* personal and place names show up only in the book of Alma (with the sole noted exception) — in my mind are pretty convincing evidence that *anti* is a Nephite/Lamanite morpheme, including in the name “AntiNephiLehi”. ..bruce..

And here I always thought the name was meant for those who, while they had been converted to the gospel, couldn’t really be called Nephites because they never followed Nephi. So, they were, at least at one time, against Nephi and Lehi, but saw the truth of the gospel, and had a hard time reconciling those two parts of themselves.

I could imagine that, even in Alma’s time, there were still a lot of negativity among Lamanites – not necessarily for the church (although there was some of that as well) but for the way Lehi and Nephi acted “against” Laman and Lemuel. Maybe it is to easy to imagine in todays world that the things that happened to the two older brothers were enough to be the source of true enmity, especially as the stories were told over generations and grew in the telling. The fact that they also had the gospel was just another way expressing the differences between the peoples.

So, my question back to you is this: Could there be followers of Christ who, although they believed and subscribed wholeheartedly to the doctrines of the church, still held negative feelings for Nephi and Lehi?

Coming forward for today, this is a huge stumbling block for many investigators. Many look at the gospel, and see it for what it is – the works that are done by it, the ideas, the concepts – all of it is wonderfully simple to understand and to prove by the Holy Ghost. If only it wasn’t for the fact of that Joseph Smith character who had so many wives, and was a treasure hunter, and acted in many ways contrary to what some people’s idea of a prophet should act. Some still join the church, despite their feelings for Joesph – and probably have a hard time reconciling those two ideas – perhaps much like the Anti-Nephi-Lehies.