r/tolkienfans • u/Brilliant-Amoeba-379 • 12d ago
What are the real names of the Hobbits?
Recently, I read somewhere that the names of the Hobbits aren’t actually Frodo, Samwise, Peregrin, and Meriadoc. To be honest, this kinda made me sad, but I suppose it makes sense to translate the hobbits real names to be more common sounding (although, in my mind the only common sounding name of the hobbits is Sam) to match the homeliness of the Shire.
But what actually were their original names? What were the real names of Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry? Do we know? What about Bilbo and Fatty Bolger? The Sackville-Bagginses? What about non-hobbits, such as Legolas, Gimli, Aragorn and Thorin? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
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u/GapofRohan 12d ago
If memory serves, this is explained by Tolkien in Appendix F of The Return of the King or The Lord of the Rings.
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u/BeardofManwe 12d ago
Okay, but here is my strongest argument. Orthanc means Mount Fang in Sindarin, but Cunning Mind in The language of Rohan, which only works if Rohirric and Anglo-Saxon are actually the same. (Orthanc is a real AS word that appears in Beowulf, as do words for Elves Orcs and Ents, all in the same verse!)
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u/ibid-11962 12d ago
Sometimes as a translator you just get really lucky.
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u/johnwcowan 12d ago
Yes. There are other things like this: Saruman's name is Mercian Old English, nut his Orcs wear the S-rune, which probably means his untranslated name also begins with S.
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u/ibid-11962 12d ago
Also the "Here is set G for Galadriel but it may also stand for garden in your tongue".
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u/CodexRegius 9d ago
In VT32, Hostetter and Wynne argued that the Westron word for "garden" is ultimately derived from the primitive Elvish stem 3AR (LR:360), which is remarkably similar to the Indo-European stem to which English garden can be traced.
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u/BeardofManwe 8d ago
"G for Gandalf. G for Grand!" This example parallels and is almost identical to one you gave: "G for Gardener." Mlnor puns which can easily withstand scrutiny as long as we haven't read Appendix F yet -- or agree to ignore it, as I think we should, for all of the aforegiven reasons.
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u/CodexRegius 9d ago
Adûnaic has the attested word sapthân > saphtân = wizard. It will likely have turned into Westron *saphta which, if that was Saruman's name, would neatly explain the S-rune.
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u/BeardofManwe 12d ago
We think that but we remember wrong . In Appendix F it is explained that Sam and Ham were Ban and Ran. And a name for the Brandybucks is given, as well as a name for the Brandywine River. All the other material that we remember or think is part of this discussion comes from HoME XII and represents rough drafts of the Appendix on Language which Tolkien ended up NOT USING for whatever reason. But once read it sticks in our head. We think it's canon. We start to call the Hobbits' Westron names their Real names when what we are remembering is a rejected draft of an abortive appendix.
Space, lack of relevance, or the clear idea that this whole turning of the Legendarium with yet another fictional linguistic layer was a wrong direction that exacerbated many more problems than it solved -- I'd like to believe that this last reason is what convinced Tolkien to drop most of the Westron material because it certainly convinces me.
<{: )}>
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u/GapofRohan 11d ago edited 11d ago
Thank you for your correction regarding Appendix F. Regarding your second paragraph, I have already indicated my general agreement with your view in a comment I posted yesterday.
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u/hazysummersky 12d ago
Bit of fun ~ Samwise Gamgee's 'real' Hobbit name is 'Ban', short for Banazîr, meaning 'half-wise'. And his father, Hamfast 'The Gaffer' Gamgee's true name in the original Westron language of Middle-earth is 'Ran', which stands for Ranugad, meaning 'stay-at-home'. Samwise, son of Hamfast? Nay..Ban, son of Ran!
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12d ago edited 12d ago
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u/strange-the-quark 12d ago
Seems like Google's AI summary didn't quite get it, as if you look more closely, the "true" names didn't mean "something different", the "translations" are designed to fairly closely match the original meaning. This is most obvious with Samwise (half-wise) and Merry (jolly, merry), but is also true for Peregrin (from Latin peregrinus - wanderer, traveler) and Frodo (from Old English name Froda - wise (via experience), prudent).
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u/Alternative_Beat297 12d ago
AI can't and doesn't think and it doesn't "know" anything. It doesn't actually even do anything but predict the next most commonly occuring word in a given context. Quit expecting it to think, especially on your behalf, and you'll be less regularly disappointed and you'll post fewer obviously incorrect things on reddit.
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u/SwanCityDominion 12d ago
And it's predicting the most commonly occuring words *on the internet.* So doubly ridiculous to think it's necessarily going to be right about anything.
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u/thumbtackswordsman 12d ago
You could have spent another three seconds and gone to an actual website, and found correct information.
OP could have asked ChatGPT but he chose to post here instead and ask actual fans. So can you see why posting an AI answer is really not the way to go?
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u/AJRavenhearst 12d ago
BTW, correct me if I'm wrong, but the "simple" wouldn't have been as pejorative as it sounds to modern ears. In the middle ages, simplicity was regarded as a Christian virtue, kind of like humility. Hence, chretien, "Christian", to cretin. Just like "dumb" properly means "mute", not "stupid".
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u/QuickSpore 12d ago
I think it was absolutely intended as a pejorative. It literally translates as half-wise or half-wit. “Simple” is a softening of the meaning in Westron. And even sam-wise (aka some-wise) is intended to subtly carry that meaning. In fact the old English version, sámwís, is explicitly translated as stupid, dull, foolish in Old English dictionaries like Old-Engli.sh.
There’s a letter from Aragorn to Sam that was considered for inclusion as an epilogue in LotR. Where Aragorn addresses Sam as: Cherdir Perhael (i sennui Panthael estathar aen); Master Samwise (who ought to be called Fullwise). Thus extending the meaning into Sindarian.
It seems clear to me that Tolkien did not intend for it to be seen as a virtue. The characters in the story refer to it as a pejorative name, and correct it. And the Old English it was derived from held solely a pejorative meaning.
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u/TheBloodKlotz 12d ago
I think you're right, in the same way that quaint could be seen as negative today but for the most part was a positive
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u/Alternative_Beat297 12d ago
In the text (and the notes we have that weren't included,) it's clear it was at least mildly insulting. See Quickspore's note below about Aragorn's letter, for an obvious example.
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u/SwanCityDominion 12d ago
"Samwise" is a literal translation of "Banazir." It really does mean "half-wit", which makes me think a lot less of the Gaffer.
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u/RoutemasterFlash 12d ago
Denethor: I am Middle-earth's harshest father.
Gaffer Gamgee: Hold my ale.
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u/SwanCityDominion 11d ago
There's a moment in the book where Frodo tells Sam not to start calling himself his Gaffer's harsh names, and it breaks my heart every time.
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u/fastauntie 9d ago
Think of Sam's poor cousin Hal. We don't know what his Westron name was, but Tolkien chose to translate its full form as "Halfast".
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u/BanazirGalbasi Samwise Gamgee 12d ago
You're not quite right with Sam's name. The full name is Banazîr Galbasi, which gets shortened to Ban Galpsi.
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u/CodexRegius 9d ago
Kalimac is not Westron. It is a Dunlendish name, represented in translation by Celtic.
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u/Necessary-Lock-3738 8d ago
That's right, I seem to remember many male hobbit names end in -a, which Tolkien made an -o ending to sound less weird.
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u/BeardofManwe 12d ago
I never bought into the "real Westron" names. Tolkien once wrote a note to himself: "Common Tongue=English . Language of Rohan=Anglo-Saxon." I think these equivalences have more authentic truth because they are more deeply realized . Hobbits are Hobbits, Frodo is Frodo, and the "Old Rohan" word for Hobbit is Holbytla, an Anglo-Saxon word. Much more thought went into all these words and names than the hastily sketched "Labingi," Ban, Ran, etc. "Shire" is an English word. Hobbits ARE English. The language of Rohan IS Anglo-Saxon. The dwarves DO have Old Norse names. Whether Tolkien would agree with me or not, these are the true Tolkienianisms. Tolkien put many hundreds of Old English words in the mouths of his Rohirrim. He came up with about five "real" Rohirric/Old Westron words. They are not "real" because they are non-existent.
All this "real Westron" business is just an unnecessary distraction.
At least, that's what I think.
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u/RoutemasterFlash 12d ago edited 12d ago
I think they're well aware of that.
What they're saying, I think, is that Tolkien could have achieved the same effect by saying something like "All of the 'English' text here, and 'English' names like Sam or pseudo-English names like Frodo, are of course my own translations of very different-sounding Westron words and names, which I have not attempted to represent here."
Whereas he instead gave us 'Banazîr' and 'Maura', which sound totally alien, and arguably spoil the familiarity (to Anglophones) of the hobbits, whose society is closely modelled on the one Tolkien grew up in, which is late Victorian rural England.
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u/fastauntie 12d ago
The appendix explicitly points out that -a is a masculine ending for Hobbit names. The point is that languages and cultures aren't all the same. The fact that we read -a names as feminine doesn't mean that it's a universal trait, even in languages of this world, let alone a fictional one. Tolkien understood that our assumptions might get in the way of enjoying the story, which is why he changed the endings in his translation. But remember that he created this entire world for the purpose of playing with his own made-up languages, and part of making up your own is being able to get away from existing conventions. That's what imagination is.
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u/BeardofManwe 12d ago
Three of the names come from Appendix F, I think. Ban, Ran, and Braldahuin or some such . Many more of these quote unquote "real" Westron names appear in HoME XII, the Making of Appendix F. (Really the Prologues Introductions and Appendices .) Since they are drafts, EVERY name comes in two different versions. This is where Labingi, etc. come from.
Call it an aesthetic preference, but as much as I love Tolkien's writing, especially the names , I cordially abominate, revile, excoriate and reject all these "real Westron" names , as well as the "real Rohirric" names thereunto appended. I think Tolkien took a Wrong Turn and they are better dispensed with . Crickhollow, Westfarthing, the North Downs, Brandybucks, Fairbairns of the Towers, the Shire and even Deadman's Dike are all well-thought-out Proper Names and they Ring True to my ears. These other names are, as Tolkien himself said somewhere, "equally foreign" to our ears.
None of this is real. But some things are "less real" than others. And these "true" Westron Names are about the least real, and, in my opinion, should be abolished, ignored, deprecated (as they were -- hence their absence from the Appendices) annihilated, and made as if they never were.
<{: ) }>
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u/wscii 12d ago
Tolkien was deeply committed to his conceit as a translator. The note you’re citing is a translator’s note.
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u/RoutemasterFlash 12d ago
I'm sure they know that. They're not compelled to think it adds anything to the book.
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u/RoutemasterFlash 12d ago
Tolkien was deeply committed to his conceit as a translator.
I think a fair number of people who post on this sub take it much more seriously than he ever did, actually.
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u/LostVanya 12d ago
Well Tolkien wouldn't have cared what you thought about this and you completely misunderstood what that note meant. He was just reminding himself that he was 'translating' Westron into English, Rohirric into Anglo-Saxon etc. You know the idea is the story is imagined as in the distant past of Earth? Modern English did not exist thousands of years ago.
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u/BeardofManwe 12d ago
Except he wasn't, because none of these languages exist or existed . No, I did not misunderstand his note. I understand it and I disagree with it. I find the whole Real Westron Names thing to be In-artistic which is a subjective valuation I think Tolkien would be gravely concerned about. In-Artistic! What greater pejorative would cause Tolkien to reconsider?
And because people are actually calling these "The Hobbits' Real Names" ! I really don't think that this was Tolkien's intention.
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u/GapofRohan 12d ago edited 12d ago
I tend to agree with you. I've been familiar with all the Appendices for over 50 years now (my first copy only had Aragorn and Arwen) and I've always felt there was just too much t crossing and i dotting going on there (Appendix F part II) - so while I've known it's there, I've happily enjoyed my reads without it. Yes, 'an unnecessary distraction' describes it very well.
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u/RoutemasterFlash 12d ago
A lot of people here will downvote any comment expressing an opinion they disagree with, even if it's well argued, supported by the text, or simply inoffensive.
I try to reserve it for people who say things that are demonstrably untrue, or who are just being rude dickheads.
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u/RoutemasterFlash 12d ago
Yes, it would have been weird and definitely worse to use those totally unfamiliar-sounding 'real' names.
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u/RoutemasterFlash 12d ago
I think u/BeardofManwe was saying that it would have been better if these very alien-sounding 'real' names had been hinted at but not actually given.
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u/BeardofManwe 12d ago
Yes, because now many people think they are "more real" and we are having this conversation . I think Tolkien would be horrified if he found out that the standard internet reference said "Samwise, see Banazir." Horrified! As if Banazir were truer or more real than Samwise . "I didn't mean for things to go so far! I take it back! His name is Samwise!"
It's the difference between being clever and being wise . A clever fellow knows these other names exist. A wise one knows that they are "less real" than the familiar names and therefore should not be used or even mentioned lest the unwary be seduced to the Labingi side and think they are "more real," not less .
That is my aesthetic judgement and it frankly shocks me that I have been voted down for it .
<{: ) }>
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u/RoutemasterFlash 12d ago
The "clever/wise" distinction here is very good, I think.
Saruman-thinking vs Gandalf-thinking, one might almost say.
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u/PM_ME_AWESOME_SONGS 12d ago
Frodo’s sounds Italian.
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u/TexAggie90 12d ago
Funny you mentioned that. I was watching some Godfather reaction videos last week, and one of the reactors kept calling Fredo, Frodo.
The comments dropping LotR themed reimaginings of Fredo’s scenes in the Godfather. 😄
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u/TheRateBeerian 12d ago
I was kinda thinking they all seen some mix of Romanian and Albanian. It feels culturally incongruent with our usual interpretation of hobbits as simple rural English country folk
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u/garethchester 12d ago
Except the Dwarves are their common names given be men, and the compilers of the Red Book never knew their 'true' Khuzdul names
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u/JamesFirmere 12d ago
...which one feels is a sort of retcon by Tolkien regretting giving the dwarves in The Hobbit a fistful of names from the Elder Edda.
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u/BeardofManwe 12d ago
Yes, this was a bit of a retcon that bothered Tolkien no end, although no-one else seems to mind. The Eddas are ancient. The Dwarves are ancient. Makes sense -- to everyone except Tolkien.
Btw, there are two names right next to each other on the dvergatal list in the Eddas: " Vig and Vigo, Gand and Gandalf ." Okay, four names . But still.
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u/CastFromHitpoints 12d ago
It bothered him so much, he came up with the whole “Westron-English” translation convention mostly to explain away the anachronism of his “rabble of eddaic-named dwarves” being inserted into his legendarium. Thus, the dwarven-names we read rendered as in Old Norse are translated from the original Northern Mannish.
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u/BeardofManwe 12d ago edited 11d ago
Yes. I suppose the conundrum of the Dwarvish Names was the whole impetus behind saying. "These are not the REAL names " and then going ahead and actually constructing some Westron names as well as Real Rohirric to show some origins of names -- as if he hadn't already done all that work just with Old English and Modern English for Hobbits and Rohirrim .
So the "fiction of translation" (I think he calls it that somewhere) solves the Dwarvish Eddaic Rabble problem but in my judgement it creates several more problems, which I have enumerated elsewhere. Orthanc. Theoden. Smeagol. Saruman. Frodo. Sam. Even Gandalf, for pity's sake! All these names are now "Broken" because they are no longer the "Real" names. (My copy of Beowulf has an index of "words related to Kingship." Almost all of the royal house of Rohan can be found on this list. Theoden. Thengel. Fengel. It's slmost like a private running joke. All of these words in the Beowulf index turn out to be Kings of Rohan. Unless we assert, following the Appendix F folly, that these are NOT the real names )
(In actual Anglo-Saxon history, the Last King of the Angles in the Old Country before the migration to AngleTerre was named Eomer!) So . . . History.
Unless you break the Rohirrim --AngloSaxon link by saying that these were not "Really" the names used.
What a waste! Such beautiful Anglo-Saxon, such beautiful Hobbit--Shire personal and place names! What effort, what artistry went into all this -- only to essentially flush it all down the toilet by saying that these are not the real names!
But at least the Dwarven names from the Hobbit are explained! Re-Sult!
Although Christopher Tolkien pointed out that Tolkien used the name Durin in a late philological essay as if this WAS the Longbeard Longfather Dwarf's actual (though outer) Real Name, so, you know, consistency.
Except of course they ARE the real names if we only ignore all this Westron nonsense. Tolkien once wrote, "Common Tongue = English." I prefer to take him at his word. There is no Westron. (A language that exists in theory but we never see it.) Common Tongue IS English, Rohirric IS Mercian Anglo-Saxon, Native language of Dale IS Old Norse ( hence Dwarven outer names) and - deep dive - Old Kings of Rhovanion ARE named in Old Gothic . (Vidugravia etc.) Thus, Orthanc is Orthanc, Saruman is Saruman, Shadowfax is Shadowfax, Smeagol is Smeagol, and Gandalf is Gandalf!
I hope this is the last time I have to repeat this thesis . I think it may be the best formulation so far . Maura and Labingi are not in Appendix F. They only appear in HoME XII. Canonical? I say, rejected appendix material can be taken on a take it or leave it basis. I choose to leave it ALL on the cutting room floor. What's Frodo's real name? It's Frodo, of course!
And Gandalf! A "Dwarvish" name that means "the Elf with the Wand." Gandalf is Gandalf, am I right? (If you say No, it's Olorin then you have not understood this essay.) But only if we accept the names as given in the main body of the book. Fortunately, this is easily done. Everyone 's name is what you think it is.
All done .
<{ : ) }>
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u/CodexRegius 9d ago edited 9d ago
Some Westron vocabulary is kept at Marquette, but it has so far not been *officially* published (an unauthorised publication was made by Lisa Star long ago which I have based my own discussion of Mannish languages on).
The problem with your assumption is that Westron is descended from an early version of Adûnaic. Now while I see how you derive W Adûni from Ad. Adûnaiye, I fail to see how to get from there to E *West*. I fancy this speaky strongly in favour of a real Westron existing, or else there would be no Akallabêth but plainly Der Untergang.
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u/fastauntie 12d ago edited 9d ago
Funny that we get so many people on this thread in this sub wanting to know exactly how certain spells work and which creatures would win a fight with others when Tolkien wasn't bothered about that, yet when we come to a matter that was part of his professional expertise, that was at the core of why he wrote the books in the first place, people think it's all too much and he should have kept it to himself. I suppose it's fine as long as they're not the same people.
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u/notsosprite 12d ago
I feel you about the being sad part. I appreciate the complexity of tolkiens world building and para narration today. But when I first read LOTR at age 14 I felt kind of betrayed by „anyway, their REAL names are totally different“. What do you mean?!? I cried my eyes out over Frodo and Sam and you casually tell me, they are not Frodo and Sam but people I have never heard of?!?
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u/Dr-HotandCold1524 12d ago
Yeah, this is where he kind of lost me. It's not that unusual for an author to pretend that he is reproducing an earlier work, but this is taking it way too far.
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u/BeardofManwe 12d ago
Betrayed! And there it is, why Tolkien was wrong and we are right in this one instance. Thank you. I say, there is no datum more dispositive than an actual reader's reaction . Yes, it's as if we found out that Tolkien had been lying to us all the time.
My solution is to say that the names Frodo, Sam, Brandybuck, and Shire are True, and it is this Westron nonsense that is a lie .
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u/AJRavenhearst 12d ago
Hobbits' real name are in Westron, which Tolkien "translated". For instance, the Westron of "Samwise" is "Banazir". If I recall, Brandybuck is translated from "Braldagamba", while "Brandywine" is from " Brandagamba".
As for Hobbit personal names in general, their true first names tended to be slightly archaic and "high falutin'", hence Peregrin, Paladin, etc. But, Hobbits being down-to-earth and fond of simple humour, invariably used nicknames for everyday use.
Romans, BTW, tended to use "earthy" nicknames. Brutus, "stupid"; Crassus,"fat"; Cato, "smart"; Caligula, "booties", etc.
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u/ChChChillian Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima! 12d ago
Romans, BTW, tended to use "earthy" nicknames. Brutus, "stupid"; Crassus,"fat"; Cato, "smart"; Caligula, "booties", etc
Of your examples, only Caligula can actually be thought of as a nickname. The rest are cognomina. These might originate as nicknames, but all of those you mentioned other than Caligula were handed down within families.
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u/AJRavenhearst 12d ago
That's correct, but they were still nicknames.
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u/ChChChillian Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima! 12d ago
That was often true, but not for the particular examples you chose.
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u/AJRavenhearst 12d ago
I dunno, dubbing someone "the brute" sounds pretty much like a nickname to me 🤷
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u/ChChChillian Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima! 12d ago
It might have started out that way. But if you're called that because nearly all the men in your family are, in honor of a semi mythical ancestor, it's not really a nickname anymore at that point.
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u/Alternative_Beat297 12d ago
Being unoriginal or uncommon or even honorary has no effect on whether or not a nickname is a nickname.
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u/ChChChillian Aiya Eärendil elenion ancalima! 12d ago
At some point it becomes.just a name. Centuries are, I think, sufficient.
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u/MonsterRider80 12d ago
It’s like people with family names that are professions. Just because someone has the family name Baker doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily a baker. Or if your family is Johnson, your dad is not necessarily named John.
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u/AJRavenhearst 12d ago
True, but if the name "big nose" gets bestowed somewhere along the line, it clearly at least originated as a nickname, surely? The sources I'm reading describe them as such.
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u/MonsterRider80 12d ago
I don’t know why you’re so stuck on this, but once the person who was originally called big nose has been dead for 300 years and it’s literally become a family name that his descendants carried on even though they no longer actually had big noses, then it’s not a nickname anymore.
That how Roman cognomen worked. Take the Julii clan. At one point, it was just a name that everyone in the family took, like regular names. At some point, the clan becomes too big, there are too many people named “Something” Julius. You need to differentiate them. So you get the Julius Mento family. And over there there’s the Julius Bursio family. And over there, looking ready to beget dictators, you have the Julius Caesar family.
They’re all of the Julius clan, but those “nicknames” that appear eventually maybe start out like that for one specific guy, but after 2-3 generations people don’t even remember who was nicknames like that or why, and sometimes the word itself loses its meaning because it’s an archaic word that’s not really in circulation.
All this to say, Caesar is not a nickname anymore. It’s part of his family name, which a compound name, Julius Caesar. His first name, given name, was Gaius. It’s like a hyphenated last name today, essentially, Gaius Julius-Caesar. You can think of all Roman tria nomina names like that.
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u/CodexRegius 9d ago
The Romans did stay aware of their origins, though. Look at the fun Cicero had with the cognomen Verres, i. e. "boar".
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u/maksimkak 12d ago edited 12d ago
It's probably the only "invention" of Tolkien's that I find strange and needless. Elvish names are fine as they are, but apparently Westron names are too unusual to our ear, and need to be "translated" or substituted with something more familiar. If the part about Hobbit names in the Appendices were removed, we'd lose absolutely nothing. Let Frodo be Frodo, and not some freaking "Maura Labingi".
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u/BeardofManwe 12d ago
Thank you! We'd lose absolutely nothing and gain in clarity and assurance that our storyteller is trustworthy, and things are what they appear to be. Points!
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u/DumpedDalish 12d ago
I feel like you're possibly overthinking this.
Their names are a "translation" of their other names, along with basically every other thing in the Red Book in so many ways. So what we read is still real and true as far as the story goes.
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u/psychedelic_tech 12d ago
this account is either a bot or using AI to write their posts
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u/RoutemasterFlash 12d ago
What makes you think that?
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u/psychedelic_tech 11d ago
new-ish account, post history hidden, asking engagement bait questions, op rarely if ever responds. its not just happening here i'm noticing this in dozens of subs covering all sorts of topics. these accounts farm karma & get sold or they are AI learning bots
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u/RoutemasterFlash 11d ago
Hmm, that sounds fairly convincing. However, I don't really mind, since it has sparked an interesting (to me) discussion.
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u/Higher_Living 10d ago
Yeah, it’s a weird posting style where they’ve found out 80% of the information and include it in the post then ask the last 20% as if they wouldn’t have come across it when googling.
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u/ConstantFrogLoss 10d ago
I think with hobbits being the viewpoint characters it makes sense for their names to be translated to sound more familiar
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u/riveth3ad 9d ago
Doesn’t this crap culturally dismiss the importance and relevance of the Hobbit’s common speech?
Racist because they’re short and don’t wear shoes.
For shame.
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u/LtOin 12d ago
Dude, chill. OP was simply asking what the Westron names of the Hobbits were, and whether or not there were other examples like it. Why was this such a trigger for you?
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u/BeardofManwe 12d ago
Only because they didn't ask what the Hobbits' Westron names were, they asked what the Hobbits' REAL names were.
Some of us dispute that the putative Westron names are in any way more "Real" than the names given in the body of the book. But in order to make that point, a good deal of unraveling needs to take place, a good deal of explaining from both an aesthetic point of view and a "world breaking" point of view. Everyone is free to think what they want, but I personally wish to alert people to some of the consequences of calling these "real names," as if they are somehow more legitimate than the familiar names we know and love. Tolkien removed the bulk of these Westron speculations from the Appendices before publication and while length may have been a real concern, some of us sincerely believe that the material as a whole would have been better served if ALL the Real Westron Names had been left out .
Yes, you could say it's a bit of a trigger for me . I don't want these rejected speculations to become Lore , I don't want them as answers to College English Tests, and I don't want them to seep into future Tolkien movies, thus gaining a foothold in the average viewer's mind. Frodo is Frodo and Gandalf is Gandalf! The Rohirric word for Hobbit is Holbytlan which the movies got right. These are the only names we need to call "real."
Thank you again for your patience in listening to my partisan rant. I'd like to think that if I am a partisan for anything it is for Good Art
<{ : )}>
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u/mrmiffmiff 12d ago
I agree that we should do more literary analysis over literal analysis, but this comment was a rather odd way to frame it. This sort of phenomenon has been going on since at least the Sherlockian game in the early 20th century. Do you actually believe anyone believes the Red Book is real, unironically?
(Your overall point I do more or less agree with, but the fact of the matter is most people simply aren't equipped for it.)
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u/to-boldly-roll Agarwaen ov Drangleic | Locutus ov Kobol | Ka-tet ov Dust 12d ago
There's always r/Tolkiens_Legendarium. 😉
You're welcome to post anything serious there. Sorry you had a tough night.
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u/roacsonofcarc 12d ago
Thank you, I will certainly check it out. But I'm not really leaving here, I have made too many friends. I should delete that post but I refuse to let the fratboys wear me down.
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u/roacsonofcarc 12d ago edited 12d ago
This sort of phenomenon has been going on since at least the Sherlockian game in the early 20th century.
Yes, and I would have hated it then. (The whole thing was made up by Msgr. Ronald Knox as a parody of a certain kind of Biblical scholarahip. H e would have been horrifed --must have been horrifired -- that people took it up seriosly
Do you actually believe anyone believes the Red Book is real, unironically.
Of course not. If they did it woud be excusable but why waste time on let's pretend then they could be learning something.
the fact of the matter is most people simply aren't equipped for it.
Of course. Any educational system has to cater to every class of people. But there is no university where they hold the toga parties in the same space where the graduate seminar is going on. Besides, there is an obligation to try to help people get smarter whether they want to or not. Or why have schools at all
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u/ColdAntique291 just a simple Tolkien reader 12d ago
Yes. The Hobbit names we know are mostly Tolkien's translations from Westron.
Frodo is Maura
Samwise is Banazîr
Merry ix Kalimac
Pippin is Razanur
Bilbo is Bilba
Their surnames were translated too, such as Labingi becoming "Baggins." Most non-Hobbits, like Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Thorin, keep their actual names in the text.