What do the names really mean?

[Rindoien, elf of Lothlorien]

Looking at the back of the Silm., I was quick to find that 'Ar-wen' actually meant 'Noble-Maiden'. When looking at the end part, the 'wen', it was easy to associate with the old English term 'wench', meaning young women.

Tolkien also used to 'noble', the 'ar', in 'Aragorn'.

Are there any other names you have found closer meaning to?

[Corwyn Celesil]

I'm afraid I do not entirely understand your question, but it is a fascinating subject, so please explain!

[SamwiseGamgee]

I'm not entirely sure if I'm answering your question here, but it's a thought I've often had and this seems as good a place as any.
The name Samwise in itself is surely no mistake. We all know how famous Dickens was for pouring over his names, for example the Dedlocks in Bleak House were engaged in a long and destructive Chancery case which was going nowhere- hence Dedlock. There are many others, but this isn't Dickens.com! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Anyway: Samwise. Sam is, of course, a working man's hero- that's fair to say. He is not- when looked at in the same light as Gandalf, Elrond and Celeborn, for example- wise. At least in the classic sense. However, Sam is nonetheless a very wise figure. He, for example, has the wisdom to not try to keep The Ring at Cirith Ungol- contrary to what the film may suggest- because he knows Frodo has been appointed Ringbearer, and while he lives it is his task, not Sam's.
Sam's resilience to the evil sway of magic could perhaps- though tenuously, I admit it- be linked to some kind of wisdom, an inner strength. Sam is the only hobbit not overcome in the Old Forest, and he gives The Ring back to Frodo, as I mentioned above, with it having apparently no effect on him.
To conclude, then, I'm agreeing with you that Tolkien's names have meaning, though perhaps not just in their direct translation from the tongues of Middle Earth.

[Finwe]

Actually, the name "Samwise" was one of Tolkien's linguistic jokes. The name itself means "Half-wise," in other words, practically stupid. We see Samwise develop into a very wise character in the Books, and at the end, in the King's Letter (part of the Epilogue to LotR that Tolkien later discarded), Aragorn says that Samwise, who is called Perhael in Sindarin, ought to be called Panthael, which means "Full-wise." In other words, that linguistic joke should be emended.

[SamwiseGamgee]

I didn't know that Finwe. Really interesting. Thanks. It sounds like this is my thread, now! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Maéglin]

Off topic, but Finwe where can this Epilogue of LOTR be found?

[Sharkû]

History of Middle-earth IX, "Sauron defeated".

[Rindoien, elf of Lothlorien]

Also, 'wyn' is related to the word 'gwyn' which means 'white'. Eo'wyn'. She was called the 'White Lady'.

[QuickSlash]

In Rohan, the word 'Eorl' in some form or another is frequently used. I just finished looking over something with a bit of Old English text and saw 'Eorl' was there. I looked it up online and saw it once to mean 'Nobleman' and once to mean 'Warrior.' Either way, it fits the horsemen of Rohan.

[Sharkû]

No, _wyn_ is the archaic form of _win_, '"1. Joy, pleasure, delight, bliss; a source of joy, a delight."' (²OED on CD-ROM).
_Gwyn_ isn't even English, it's Welsh.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

It's not always as easy as it looks to spot the origin of Tolkien's names. Bear in mind that he was a professional philologist, who could speak several languages apart from English. It's also worth bearing in mind that he had been working on the Elven languages for a good many years before he began to think of names for The Lord of the Rings. He mentions the dangers of assuming that coincidental similarities are deliberate in a letter to a fan who thought that Moria was a reference to the Biblical land of Morīah.

As for the 'land of Morīah' (note stress): that has no connexion (even externally) whatsoever. Internally there is no conceivable connexion between the mining of Dwarves and the story of Abraham. I utterly repudiate any such significances and symbolisms. My mind does not work that way; and (in my view) you are led astray by a purely fortuitous similarity, more obvious in spelling than speech, which cannot be justified from the real intended significance of my story.

Letter #297, drafts dated August 1967

Samwise and Hamfast are taken directly from Old English, as are the names of the Rohirrim. Elven names and those of the kings of Gondor are usually in Sindarin, and have a purposed, often prophetic meaning in that language (such as Arvedui - Last King). It would be extraordinarily difficult to invent a name that both obeyed the established grammar and vocabulary of Sindarin and had a purposed second meaning in modern English. Similarly, the sources and roots of Tolkien's languages were such that we will never know why he chose the words he did to fit their meanings. Even something that seems obvious, such as the similarity between Mordorian nazg ('Ring') and the Gaelic word nasc (Irish) or nasg (Scottish) of the same meaning, though not explicitly denied by Tolkien as was the Moria/Morīah link, is never wholeheartedly supported by him either. In the same letter quoted above, he wrote:

...it remains remarkable that nasc is the word for 'ring' in Gaelic... It also fits well with the meaning, since it also means, and prob. originally meant, a bond, and can be used for an 'obligation'. Nonetheless I only became aware, or again aware, of its existence recently in looking for something in a Gaelic dictionary. I have no liking at all for Gaelic from Old Irish downwards, as a language, but it is of course of great historical and philological interest, and I have at various times studied it.(With alas! very little success.) It is thus probable that nazg is actually derived from it, and this short, hard and clear vocable, sticking out from what seems to me (an unloving alien) a mushy language, became lodged in some corner of my linguistic memory.

Something of the intellectual process that Tolkien went through in adopting words from the primary world into his legends and languages can be seen from one of the names for which he did give us the source. This was Eärendil, one of the earliest in the Silmarillion material to emerge, of which he wrote:

The most important name in this connexion is Eärendil. This name is in fact (as is obvious) derived from A[nglo]-S[axon] éarendel. When first studying A-S professionally (1913 - ) - I had done so as a boyish hobby when supposed to be learning Greek and Latin - I was struck by the great beauty of this word (or name), entirely coherent with the normal style of A-S, but euphonic to a peculiar degree in that pleasing but not 'delectable' language. Also its form strongly suggests that it is in origin a proper name and not a common noun. This is borne out by the obviously related forms in other Germanic languages; from which amid the confusions and debasements of late traditions it at least seems certain that it belonged to astronomical-myth, and was the name of a star or star-group. To my mind the A-S uses* seem plainly to indicate that it was a star presaging the dawn (at any rate in the English tradition): that is what we now call Venus: the morning-star as it may be seen rising brilliantly in the dawn, before the actual rising of the Sun. That is at any rate how I took it. Before 1914 I wrote a 'poem' upon Earendel who launched his ship like a bright spark from the havens of the Sun. I adopted him into my mythology - in which he became a prime figure as a mariner, and eventually as a herald star, and a sign of hope to men. Aiya Eärendil Elenion Ancalima (II 329) 'hail Earendil brightest of stars' is derived at long remove from Éala Éarendel engla beorhtast. But the name could not be adopted just like that: it had to be accommodated into the Elvish linguistic situation, at the same time as a place for this person was made in legend. From this, far back in the history of 'Elvish', which was beginning, after many tentative starts in boyhood, to take definite shape at the time of the name's adoption, arose eventually (a) the C.E. stem *AYAR 'Sea', primarily applied to the Great Sea of the West, lying between Middle-earth and Aman the Blessed Realm of the Valar; and (b) the element or verbal base (N)DIL, 'to love, be devoted to' - describing the attitude of one to a person, thing, course or occupation to which one is devoted for its own sake.

* Its earliest recorded A-S form is earendel (oer-), later earendel, eorendel. Mostly in glosses on jubar=leoma; also on aurora. But also in Blick[ling] Hom[ilies] 163, se níwa éorendel app[lied] to St. John the Baptist; and most notably Crist 104, éala! éarendel engla beorhtast ofer middangeard monnum sended. Often supposed to apply to Christ (or Mary), but comparison with Bl. Homs. suggests that it refers to the Baptist. The lines refer to a herald and divine messenger, clearly not the soðfæsta sunnan leoma=Christ

Ibid

As we can see from the above, the best that anyone would be doing in taking words from English (or any other natural language) and linking them with words in Tolkien's languages that sound similar would be guessing (with little hope of success, unless the enquirer shared Tolkien's knowledge of the subject). Even going back to the earliest words recorded in The History of Middle-earth and following their development would furnish little more than slightly more informed guesswork. This was the sort of thing that Tolkien did as part of his job, so you can bet that if you can think of an obscure connection he had at least one twice as murky from which to work. In any case, the invention of languages owes as much to the mind of their creator as it does to the influences on which he drew.