There will no longer be a debate over whether those from Utah should be called “Utahns” or “Utahans”, after the Legislature passed a bill to formalize the word Utahn on the antepenultimate day of the session.
SB230, sponsored by Sen. Daniel McCay, R-Riverton, passed through the House on Wednesday and will now go to the governors desk for him to sign or veto the bill. The bill would officially give people the nickname “Utahns,” not “Utahans.”
The bill had passed through the Senate unanimously but in the House it received two votes against it.
“For me, I just felt like it wasn’t necessary to pass a bill to dictate how a word is spelled,” said Rep. Anthony Loubet, R-Kearns who voted against the bill. “I think language tends to evolve naturally, and I wasn’t sure this was something that needed legislation. That being said, I appreciate the conversations we had, and I respect the sponsor and the work that went into the bill.”
This bill would establish Utahn as the state demonym, a word used to denote inhabitants of a particular country, state or city. The word Utahn has never been formalized before.
“While it may seem trivial, I think how we’re known and how you know people see Utahns is important, and we want to make sure they spell it correctly directly,” said McCay during the bill’s senate committee hearing on Feb. 12.
Most people from Utah spell it “Utahn”
After the bill was first introduced the Deseret News spoke with multiple people around the Capitol, asking them whether it should be spelled “Utahn” or “Utahan.” Native Utahns tended to spell it “Utahn” and those not originally from the state would spell it “Utahan.”
During the Senate committee hearing, the sponsor shared that he worked with Quin Monson, a political science professor at BYU to put together the bill.
“I’ve noticed over the years that the way that people refer to people from Utah in various places is not consistent, but there is a very strong preference among especially native Utah residents and long time residents to spell it U-T-A-H-N and that there are other places around the country that spell it differently, and they add an extra A,” Monson said.
Monson shared that in 2021 he ran a digital analysis which found that local Utah news outlets used “Utahn” more than 90% of the time, but national news outlets mostly used “Utahan.” His analysis found that The New York Times used “Utahn” only 6.8% of the time.
During that same year he also sent out a survey to Utah residents asking them to choose between using the extra “A” or no extra “A.” Monson said that 90% of residents did not use the extra “A.”
“So Utahns, of every ideology, political persuasion, religion and other category, they all agree that this is the right spelling,” Monson said.