Translations of Common Name Suffixes and Prefixes

In the spirit of immersion in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings Online offers naming recommendations appropriate to your character’s race and gender. But do you know what your name means?

Ulthir might sound good at character generation, but you’ve just named your character "Odor Face" in Elven. Andtaran, meaning "Long Stiff Man", is probably more suggestive than you intend. And Nimuil sounds wizardly, but it actually means "Pale Seaweed". But if you knew to name your Captain Halthalion ("Exalted Hero") or your Burglar Curwe ("Crafty") you’d be in good shape.

Unfortunately, gleaning the meaning of Middle-Earth’s names can be difficult. Tolkien was a linguist before he was an author, and his love of languages was as deep as his passion for Middle Earth. Tolkien wanted his names and his languages to feel like they had evolved in a realistic manner. As a result, any given name can include archaic sounds from an older tongue, or use a definition that has changed (just like the name "John" doesn’t actually mean "toilet").

What follows is our best effort to provide some meaning to the common name suffixes and prefixes that appear in The Lord of the Rings Online. Since Elven names are the most popular and difficult to decipher, we’ve started with Sindarin.

Note that in the interest of keyboard ease, Turbine replaced special characters like ë and é with standard English letters, and so this translation does the same.

Finally, all you Tolkien linguists out there, please don’t hesitate to add a Comment if you see a mistranslation or mistake!

• Sindarin Names

  
  

• Rohirric / Dale Names

  
  

• Comments

  
  

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