[Sharkû]

Two main possibilities seem likely, either the other Rings had names, and we only do not know them, or they never had any. To further analyze this dichotomy, both the processes of name generating and traditioning in general, and in Middle-Earth in especial, and the nature of the Rings have to be considered.

The latter may make the assumption seem likely that the Rings never had names. Apart from the Three, which in turn had names, the other 16 plus 1 Rings were all forged with the influential aid of Sauron. Therefore, it may be the case that the Elves would have never given such creations names of their own; for with nomenclature, there is always connected an underlying power in Middle-Earth, where names are more than ‘but sound and smoke’, and in turn can attribute a fate to people and items. On the other hand, the Rings could have had names, but these were never used by the Elves for the very same reason, or the Elves never heard of the names their dwarven and human bearers, or the Dark Lord himself – which is unlikely though - may have given them. Or we simply do not have the record in which their names are given, and in the Red Book their names are avoided.

Which leads us to the point that the Rings may have had names that were never traditioned. Dwarves were very peculiar about names, their belief considered names to be of even greater importance than other people’s; as we all know, they never told their real names to any outsider. This may have been the case with the Seven Rings of the dwarves -- they had inner names, but only to those who possessed them or were near the bearers.
With the mortal Rings, things are a bit different, since, unlike the dwarves, the men who wielded the Rings eventually totally fell to the will of Sauron and became the Nazgûl. While it is not only unlikely that a Nazgûl would even bother to name the Ring he was given (even if he still had it, and possessed yet the reason to do so), it is likewise not probable that names which may have been given to the Nine Rings before the corruption of the nine bearers would have been traditioned.

As for the One Ring itself, I personally doubt that even its creator ever gave it a name. Why would he have had to, anyway; Sauron more likely viewed the Ring as an integral part of himself, not as an independent physically existing item. If the Ring had had a name, we can assume that it was never used, even if it were known, but that instead the euphemism ‘One Ring’ was used in much the same way Sauron was always spoken of only as the ‘Dark Lord’ or ‘The Enemy’ by all save the most powerful.
When it comes to the Three Rings, one could speculate that their names never really were meant as such; or that at least these three names were not made up with this intention, i.e. that it rather was the same case as often in nomenclature, that yet unnamed things slowly take a name which is in fact only a description of the item. This is possible for all three Elven Rings. Vilya was the ring of air, Nenya was the ring of water, Narya the ring of fire, and their names mean nothing else. We can assume Celebrimbor never referred to them by anything else but the description ‘ring of fire (… )’, which in his Quenya tongue may have been ‘Narya (… )’; and only over the course of ages the description became a name of its own. Since we can also assume that the Nine and the Seven did not have such very special traits as the Three, it may also have been superfluos, if at all possible, to give them individual names. The dwarven Rings may have been called ‘rings of gold’, but if all Seven can be, and are called that, individual names will not develop from that description.

So, to answer the question at last, whether the other Ring had names, one can say: maybe, but we do not know them for some reason, and on the other hand it seems very likely that they never had names anyway.

[ November 27, 2001: Message edited by: Sharku ]