The prefix Ara

[Araen]

Okay it clearly states in the appendix that after a certain king of Gondor that every heir would have Ara at the beging of his name..... 'twasn't so with Aragorn's son. Why? Don't kill me I am a bing newbie......

[Mithadan]

Welcome to the Barrow-Downs. Rest assured, we do not kill, shoot, or flame newbies here. I may be wrong on this but I believe that in naming his son, Aragorn returned to the old tradition of selecting names for kings in Quenya rather than Sindarin (or Adunaic in the case of Numenor). Thus Aragorn's formal name as King of Gondor was Telecontar (Strider).

[Aralaithiel]

No Mithadan, I believe you are correct. Now another thing to go look up! The quest of remembering where I read things, and how I comprehended them! smilies/smile.gif
Hey newbie...welcome aboard! You'll find us very friendly here!

[Starbreeze]

I didn't notice that bit - me being ignorant yet again - got to read on that!

[Elven-Maiden]

That's really cool! I hadn't realized that! smilies/smile.gif

[Sillabub]

The prefix 'Ar' means Royal, as one could observe in the name ARWEN [ar(royal)+wen(maiden)=arwen]. One of the numenorean kings chose to take up the name Ar-Pharazon instead of the numenorean traditional TAR-Pharazon. What Tar- means, I don't know.

[Sillabub]

And then there's hereditary naming, which I have no clue about. I'll just tell you that Eowyn and Eomer's father was Eomund, and Eomund's father's name started with an EO and so on and so forth. Get the pattern? I just have no clue WHY that happens. And did you know Aragorn's mother was named after a RIVER in Gondor? The river Gilraen.

[Finwe]

The prefix "Tar-" in Sindarin means "King" or "Ruler." It was used as a prefix by the Kings of Numenor who followed the Eldarin ways. When the Rebel Kings of Numenor took up the throne (as I like to call them), they changed their "use-names" to ones in Adunaic, and so the prefix for "King" or "Ruler" in that language was "Ar-."

If you look at it, it was also proof that no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't completely remove the Elvish influence on Numenor, no matter how hard they tried. "Ar-" in Sindarin means "Noble, Royal, Kingly, etc," so those Kings of Numenor were actually using an Elvish title, while thinking that they were using an Adunaic one. An example of a Sindarin name with "Ar-" as a prefix is "Ar-Feiniel" ("Noble White Lady (of the Noldor)") which was the epessë of Aredhel, daughter of Fingolfin.

[dancing spawn of ungoliant]

this may be a bit off topic (sorry) but i just noticed that the name 'Aragorn' has two elements in it. by changing the order of the letters you end up with words Aran (king in Quenya) and gor (fright or fear).
okey, now i don't have a clue why i post this here. i guess i was so excited when i noticed that kind of thing myself (though i assume that Tolkien had a better explanation for this name) smilies/rolleyes.gif