#wait so they have hobbitish names and common names?
No, they have Westron names and English names.
What youâve got to understand is that everything Tolkien wrote was him pretending to merely translate ancient documents. He was writing as if the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were actually been written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam (or Bilba, Maura, and Ban) and he was just some random contemporary academic translating it all into English for us.Â
There are many languages in his books, but generally speaking, everything written in English in the books is a translation of the language âWestron.â Therefore any names that come from Westron, he translated. Names coming from other languages, like Sindarin, he left as they were. Why? IDK. Maybe because the stories are from a hobbit perspective and hobbits speak Westron, so he wanted the Westron parts to sound familiar and the other languages/names to remain foreign?Â
âBut Mirkwoodest!â you cry, âThe word âhobbitâ isnât an English word! And the names Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuckâ all sounds super weird and not like English at all!â
Psych! They are in English! (Or Old English, German, or Norse.) Once again you underestimate what a nerd Tolkien was. Let me break it down:Â
In Westron, hobbits are actually called âkuduk,â which means âhole-dweller,â so for an English translation, Tolkien called them âhobbitsâ which is a modernization of the Old English word âholbytlaâ which comes from âHolâ (hole) and âBytlaâ(builder).Â
âMauraâ is a Westron name which means âWise.â Weirdly enough, âFrodoâ is an actual Proto-Germanic name that actual people used to have and it means the same thing.Â
âBanazĂźrâ is Westron for âhalf-wise, or simple.â In Proto Germanic, the prefix âSamâ means half, and wise is obviously a word we still use.Â
âRazanurâ means âTravelerâ or âStrangerâ which is also the meaning of the word âPeregrin(e)â This one is a twofer because âRazarâ means âa small red appleâ and in English so does âPippin.â
âKalimacâ apparently is a meaningless name in Westron, but the shortened form âKaliâ means âhappy,â so Jirt decided his nickname would be âMerryâ and chose the really obscure ancient Celtic name âMeriodocâ to match.Â
Jirt chose to leave âBilbaâ almost exactly the same in English, but he changed the ending to an âOâ because in Westron names ending in âaâ are masculine.Â
Iâm not going to go on and talk about the last names but those all have special meanings too (except TĂ»k, which is too iconic to change more than the spelling of, apparently).Â
The Rohirrim were also Westron speakers first and foremost, so their names are also âtranslationsâ into Old English and Proto-Germanic words, i.e. âEowynâ is a combination of âEohâ (horse) and âWynnâ (joy/bliss).Â
âRohirrim/Rohanâ are Sindarin words, but in the books, they call themselves the âĂothĂ©odâ which is an Old English/Norse combo that means âhorse people.â Tolkien tells us in the âPeoples of Middle Earthâ that the actual Westron for âĂothĂ©odâ is LohtĂ»r, which means that Eowyn and Eomerâs names, which come from the same root word, must also start with the letter L.Â
The names of all the elves, dwarves, Dunedain, and men from Gondor are not English translations, since they come from root words other than Westron.Â
The takeaway from this is that when a guy whose first real job was researching the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter âWâ writes a book, you can expect this kind of tomfoolery.
Notes: Sorry I said âRazalâ instead of âRazarâ in my original post Iâm a fraud.Â
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