Linguistic puns, riddles, and jokes in LotR, etc.

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Originally Posted by The Squatter of Amon Rûdh

The names of Gerontius Took's "three remarkable daughters" are all Italian. As mentioned earlier, Belladonna means "beautiful woman", Donnamira means "Remarkable woman" and Mirabella means "Remarkably beautiful". It's interesting that Bilbo's mother is the only one of the three sisters not to have a "remarkable" name.

I find it interesting that the three Took sisters have three names compounded of only three different parts: Bella, Donna, and Mira. Each sister shares a part of her name with each of the others; only the compound is unique. I'm not sure how that fact is significant, but it fascinates me. Apparently they were all remarkably beautiful females!

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar

I find it interesting that the three Took sisters have three names compounded of only three different parts: Bella, Donna, and Mira. Each sister shares a part of her name with each of the others; only the compound is unique. I'm not sure how that fact is significant, but it fascinates me. Apparently they were all remarkably beautiful females!

Since we know practically nothing about the characters, I don't think we'll ever know if and how that's significant. I suspect that the similarity of the names was deliberate, and that they were chosen for their pleasant effect when spoken - meaning being a minor consideration in Hobbit naming convention. Tolkien may have borrowed an idea from Anglo-Saxon naming convention, in which names were chosen in part because they alliterated with other names borne by members of the same family (usually fathers, grandfathers, etc.), making them easy to fit into poems recording important peoples' ancestors and easy to remember when the poems were recited. Although these names don't alliterate in the modern sense, they are memorable because of their shared components.

Belladonna and Mirabella are both botanical names, the former for Deadly Nightshade as Guinevere pointed out, the latter for the Mirabelle plum (Tolkien preferred Italian to French, so it's not surprising that he'd use an Italian form). Donnamira is the odd one out, since it doesn't refer to any common plant species.

I must admit to a mistake above: mira tends to mean 'wondrous' or 'marvellous' more than 'remarkable' (Lat. mira, mirus). Although that might mean that the sisters were all beautiful, knowing Tolkien's sense of humour they could just as easily have been extremely plain.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

In botanical taxonomy, Mirabella is also associated with a cactus and a member of the four o'clock family. So perhaps one might look at these names as meaning Belladonna had a rather poisonous personality, and Mirabella was either prickly or lazy, inclined to bestir herself only rather late in the day. As Tolkien says that Hobbits were fond of flower names for girls, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he occasionally had such things in mind.