Timeline for Tolkien character names inspired by Early Modern English
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jan 18, 2022 at 15:05 | comment | added | Stuart F | Michael Adams rather boringly claims that Tolkien made up the name "Bilbo". But sometimes the most boring explanation is true. | |
| Jun 18, 2020 at 8:28 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| May 5, 2018 at 20:59 | comment | added | user14111 | I wasn't aware of "bilbo" as an old word for a kind of sword, so when I encountered the name Bilbo in Tolkien it reminded me of the United States Senator Theodore Bilbo, Democrat and Klansman, "whose name was a synonym for white supremacy" as Wikipedia says. I'll bet Tolkien never heard of the senator. | |
| May 5, 2018 at 20:32 | history | edited | auden | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 5, 2018 at 20:18 | comment | added | andejons | Indeed. Tolkien's letter does not rule out the possibility, and there does not appear to be any better explanation, so the etymology still seems valid. | |
| May 5, 2018 at 19:56 | comment | added | auden | @andejons I have updated my answer to address this. I might also note that interestingly, while Brandybucks may use Gaelic and Tooks, Latin (I've never noticed this, thank you for saying that) the name Baggins is Anglo-Saxon, so it could be that that is the language associated with that family. | |
| May 5, 2018 at 19:56 | history | edited | auden | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 5, 2018 at 19:48 | comment | added | andejons | Isn't "that class" of the letter referring to Sam and his father, i.e. a class below Bilbo's? Compare with the more upper-class Brandybucks, which seem to use Gaelic names, and the Tooks, which were possibly the foremost family, and used Latin. | |
| May 5, 2018 at 19:48 | history | edited | auden | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 5, 2018 at 19:30 | history | edited | auden | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| May 5, 2018 at 16:24 | comment | added | Rand al'Thor♦ | Nicely researched answer! One suggestion: I'd make the paragraph beginning "It should also be noted that Westron is represented as English in the book, but the whole book is represented as translated ..." more prominent in the answer. Because this mostly reads like a study of in-universe etymology while the question asks for out-of-universe etymology, and it's important for the reader to realise that these are near-equivalent. Also, if you want a better source than Wikipedia for that paragraph, LotR Appendix F has some good discussion of that. | |
| May 5, 2018 at 16:08 | history | answered | auden | CC BY-SA 4.0 |