Words and Names in Tolkien's Work

[LadyBrooke]

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

As for Galadhon, I think the -on element is probably just a male suffix, so the name would translate roughly as 'Tree Guy'.

If Elmo comes up next, there's St Elmo's fire (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elmo%27s_fire). As this tends to be rather on the bluish than the reddish part of the spectrum, it would fit the el- element (meaning 'star'; -thil in Galathil also means light of a white or silver, rather than golden, colour).

That’s probably true, but given that everybody seems to have their pet conspiracy theory about something from Tolkien’s books, I figure that I deserve one too. And if the worst I can come up is that the descendants of Elwe’s youngest brother Elmo tend to be Elvish Casanovas, well.... I’m not harming anybody (Unless this is really all true, and Galadriel comes after me with a sword or something...)

I’m afraid Elmo’s going to have to wait while I do more research into St. Elmo’s fire which I had never heard of before. I will discuss Nimloth though.

Originally Posted by Morthoron

There are two divergent stories Tolkien wrote regarding Celeborn. One regarded, of course, his Sindarin roots and relation to Thingol, but the second one was that his name was Teleporno, a Telerin Elf of Valinor who meets Galadriel in the Telerin city of Alqualonde, and then the two decide to set off for Middle-earth. Although not part of the Kin-slaying, they are caught up in the Ban because they have not sought permission to leave Valinor. The Thingol relation story became part of the Silmarillion because Christopher Tolkien decided against a major rewrite regarding Galadriel's past, but it seems the Telerin version Teleporno was actually JRR Tolkien's last word on the character.

Thank you for bringing this up. I never intended to give off the impression that this is the only story Tolkien laid out for Celeborn. I simply can’t accept it, for myself, not because I believe the Silmarilion is always right, but because I can’t make it fit with LotR without doing somersaults and a jig with my logic. Every indication we are given in LotR as to Celeborn’s heritage makes him out to be a Silvan or Sindar and plus if he was born in Valinor than he would by the genealogies given there be Galadriel’s first cousin. And that’s just icky to the elves. As stated in one of the HOME books I don’t have, and therefore am just going off my notes about the HOME books for. Of course, if Tolkien had lived he might very well have rewritten LotR to fit with this new backstory for Galadriel, though I don’t think it’s half as interesting as the one we have.

Plus if we keep moving Elwe’s relatives to Valinor, pretty soon it’s just going to be him in the woods all by himself.

And we might have had Teleporno as his name in the books and my mommy wouldn’t have let me read them.

Now for Nimloth! Fascinating woman, married to Dior ‘the most beautiful of all Eru’s children’ gave birth to Eludred, Elurin, and Elwing, and Celeborn’s niece if we accept that Galathil is his brother.

Nim comes from nimp meaning either pale, white or small and frail. Loth means flower, inflorescence, and a head of small flowers. Inflorescence means the complete flower head of a plant, including stems, stalks, bracts, and flowers or the process of flowering. It’s most recognizable use is of course Lothlorien the realm of Celeborn and Galadriel.

Therefor here are the possible meanings of Nimloth:

Pale flower
White flower
Small and frail flower
Pale flowering
Small and frail flowering

From this the image I get of Nimloth is a small, frail, pale woman with silver hair. However it is debatable to me whether her frailty would have been internal or external. I have to say that being married to Dior it seems like she must have had some internal strength or he wouldn’t have noticed her. Why would she have been small though, considering that so many of her relatives are well relatively tall? If, and this is completely baseless speculation on my part, she had been born while everybody is searching the woods for Elwe then it may have been that they experienced severe hardships finding food and such, or if she was born after the Girdle fell, than it may be the same.