Many Latter-day Saint parents have named their children after great scriptural personalities so that in thinking about their names, the children can reflect on those great lives and desire to pattern their lives after them.
Following is a great story illustrating that principle:
President George Albert Smith was named after his grandfather, known as George A. Smith, an apostle and a counselor to Brigham Young in the First Presidency of the Church. The fact that he was named after his grandfather had a great influence upon young George Albert Smith. Once, when ill, he had a dream in which his grandfather appeared to him. He reported:
“I saw a man coming towards me. I became aware that he was a very large man, and I hurried my steps to reach him, because I recognized him as my grandfather. In mortality he weighed over three hundred pounds, so you may know he was a large man. I remember how happy I was to see him coming. I had been given his name and had always been proud of it.
“When Grandfather came within a few feet of me, he stopped. His stopping was an invitation for me to stop. Then … he looked at me very earnestly and said:
“‘I would like to know what you have done with my name.’
“Everything I had ever done passed before me as though it were a flying picture on a screen—everything I had done. Quickly this vivid retrospect came down to the very time I was standing there. My whole life had passed before me. I smiled and looked at my grandfather and said:
“‘I have never done anything with your name of which you need be ashamed.’
“He stepped forward and took me in his arms, and as he did so, I became conscious again of my earthly surroundings. My pillow was as wet as though water had been poured on it—wet with tears of gratitude that I could answer unashamed.”9