In his 1981 book, In Search of Cumorah: New Evidences for the Book of Mormon from Ancient Mexico (a good book on the Mesoamerican setting of the Book of Mormon I would recommend, in spite of this criticism thereof), David A. Palmer offered the possibility that "Cumorah" is derived from the opening words of Isa 60:1, translated as "arise, shine" in the KJV. The phrase is קוּמִי אוֹרִי which would be transliterated roughly as qûºmî ´ôºrî
While an interesting proposal, there are problems with such. As Stephen D. Ricks and John A. Tvedtnes wrote in their article The Hebrew Origin of Three Book of Mormon Place-Names:
One is that the Hebrew word for light, though feminine in gender, does not usually take the feminine suffix -āh and is simply ʾôr. This objection is lessened by the fact that the Bible uses the form ʾôrāh twice, in Psalm 139:12 and Esther 8:16. But the second problem is more serious: because the Hebrew word for “light” is feminine, the word would take the feminine form qûmî for the imperative, not the masculine qûm. For a meaning of “arise, O light,” one would expect the Hebrew form qûmî ʾôr, though qûmî ʾôrāh would not be impossible. The suggested etymology kûm ʾôrāh, “mound of light/revelation,” is a better explanation.
Both proposals seem to be based on the idea of truth coming to light or being revealed out of the hill in the form of the Book of Mormon, and one must acknowledge that Hebrew ʾôr is occasionally used in the sense of “revelation” (see Numbers 27:21; 1 Samuel 28:6; Isaiah 2:5; 49:6; 51:4; Proverbs 6:23). But the coming forth of the Book of Mormon in the last days hardly explains why the place where Mormon hid the plates should have such a name in the late fourth century A.D
For more on "Cumorah," including a response to Catholic apologist and Jesuit priest, Mitchell Pacwa, see Non-Levitical Kohens and the Etymology of Cumorah
