From the 'Letters'
Here's what the Professor said about his surname, in one of his letters of 1955:
My name is TOLKIEN (not -kein). (Letters, Letter 165, p. 218.)
In another letter, of 4-5 June 1971, Tolkien talked about Jewish names, saying that 'We now associate Jewish names largely with German, and with a colloquial Yiddish that is predominantly German in origin'. To that sentence he added this footnote:
Possibly the reason why my surname is now usually misspelt TOLKEIN in spite of all my efforts to correct this - even by my college-, bank-, and lawyer's clerks! My name is Tolkien, anglicized from To(l)kiehn = tollkühn, and came from Saxony in the 18th century. It is not Jewish in origin, though I should consider it an honour if it were. (Ibid., Letter 324, p. 410.)
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