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appendix f 1491
as Rivendell, Hoarwell, Silverlode, Langstrand, The Enemy, the
Dark Tower. Some differed in meaning: as Mount Doom for
Orodruin ‘burning mountain’, or Mirkwood for Taur e-Ndaedelos
‘forest of the great fear’. A few were alterations of Elvish names:
as Lune and Brandywine derived from Lhûn and Baranduin.
This procedure perhaps needs some defence. It seemed to me
that to present all the names in their original forms would obscure
an essential feature of the times as perceived by the Hobbits
(whose point of view I was mainly concerned to preserve): the
contrast between a wide-spread language, to them as ordinary
and habitual as English is to us, and the living remains of far
older and more reverend tongues. All names if merely transcribed
would seem to modern readers equally remote: for
instance, if the Elvish name Imladris and the Westron translation
Karningul had both been left unchanged. But to refer to Rivendell
as Imladris was as if one now was to speak of Winchester as
Camelot, except that the identity was certain, while in Rivendell
there still dwelt a lord of renown far older than Arthur would
be, were he still king at Winchester today.
The name of the Shire (Sûza) and all other places of the Hobbits
have thus been Englished. This was seldom difficult, since such
names were commonly made up of elements similar to those used
in our simpler English place-names; either words still current like
hill or field; or a little worn down like ton beside town. But some
were derived, as already noted, from old hobbit-words no longer
in use, and these have been represented by similar English things,
such as wich,orbottle ‘dwelling’, or michel ‘great’.
In the case of persons, however, Hobbit-names in the Shire
and in Bree were for those days peculiar, notably in the habit
that had grown up, some centuries before this time, of having
inherited names for families. Most of these surnames had obvious
meanings (in the current language being derived from jesting
nicknames, or from place-names, or – especially in Bree – from
the names of plants and trees). Translation of these presented
little difficulty; but there remained one or two older names of
forgotten meaning, and these I have been content to anglicize in
spelling: as Took for Tûk, or Boffin for Bophîn.
I have treated Hobbit first-names, as far as possible, in the
same way. To their maid-children Hobbits commonly gave the