Where Did Tolkien Get His Names From?
ANSWER: Many of the names in J.R.R. Tolkien’s stories appear to be contrived from the artificial languages he developed over several decades. Nonetheless, he borrowed a great many literary and historical names for his Northmen (such as “Helm”, “Bard”, and “Wulf”). Tolkien was also very clever to use historical naming practices to devise previously unattested names in Old English and Gothic.
It is well known that Tolkien drew most of his Dwarf names from the names provided in the Eddas. Tolkien also used simple place-names such as “Dale” and “Laketown” to emulate historical practices for naming obscure locations among Germanic and Scandinavian tribes.
Most if not all of the Shire family and place-names are drawn from contemporary or recent historical English nomenclature. Tolkien even received a fan letter from a Sam Gamgee in the 1950s!
Beyond the modern English, ancient English and Scandinavian, and “Elvish” sources many people through the years have pointed out similarities between Tolkien’s names and Babylonian (“Uruk”, “Erech”), Hebrew (“Uzbad”, “Azaghal”), Egyptian (“Pharazôn”, “Adunakhor”), and Slavic (“Radegast”, “-mir”). These similarities don’t prove that Tolkien used those languages for name sources, but as a linguist and a life-time student of Biblical languages (primarily Latin and Greek), Tolkien was exposed to a great many ancient sources of names and words.
He was also quite knowledgeable in the reconstructed Proto-IndoEuropean language, and some of Tolkien’s Elvish and Adunaic root words (used in the names of many characters, places, and things) appear to have been borrowed or influenced by IndoEuropean roots.
In short, Tolkien drew upon many sources and styles for his naming conventions, but he followed rules that were (apparently) clear and logical to him. Those rules have in some cases been documented by Tolkien’s own essays and deduced (with varying degrees of success) by linguists and literary critics who have studied Tolkien’s papers and writings for the past 60+ years.
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