-Gríma Wormtongue -Nazgul -Mordor -Baggins ?? -Mount Doom -Mirkwood -Faramir Boromir -Treebeard -Shelob -Saruman -Bilbo -Frodo

Sauron and his sidekick Saruman Hitler and his sidekick Himmler

We forget that all the scary things from ancient myth and legend had names in their native languages that mostly translated to "evil spirit" and "thing that kills you."

Tolkien calling himself “John Ronald” in frustration is one of the funniest parts of

"This character is Fëanor, which means Spirit of Fire in one of the languages I invented. His name symbolizes his personality, creative spirit and destructive tendencies." "This character is Treebeard, because he is a tree with a beard."

I mean the man made a world based in Anglo-Saxon traditions, he had to follow the classic Anglo-Saxon naming convention of: “Call thing what it is.”

"Merry is short for Meriadoc. Pippin is short for Peregrin. Sam is short for Samwise" "Is Frodo short for something?" "No. He's short for everything."

"don't worry, o have the trusted council of my most precious friend, Backstaberius Falsehoodspeaker

Your impression of Tolkien is so goofy but in a really heartwarming way. Like that one teacher who is chill no matter what bs is happening in the school

Truly inspiring to see how the great mind of Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien worked

Given the Saxon naming conventions that led to names like "Staveleigh hill" which translates as hill where stakes/staves grow hill" or the "river avon" which translates as "river river", none of this is surprising.

Tolkien taking massive rips of that Old Toby while cheerfully writing aloud the greatest fantasy series of all time is one of my new favorite things.

I understand Tolkien is a pretty smart guy, but imagining him like this brings me immense joy, because this reflects around 80% of my creative invention.

In the spanish translation of the name "Treebeard", they mix the words "barba" (beard) and "árbol" (tree) in the most perfect way: "bárbol".

All the people who can’t tell that this is clearly done lovingly is wild

"hmm, I do need a name for a woman to beat the Lord of the Nazi-Ghouls... ah yes! of course, I-Win, that should do it!"

You joke, but coming up with names is hard. The fact that he came up with so many cool sounding names is a feat. Half the time I just end up digging through a book of baby names or misspelling latin words. The other is me spending hours mixing random syllables.

unironically this is extremely realistic worldbuilding. even irl we just name everything literally what it is. most cities in their native language are just a geographical feature + port/settlement or a local tribe name + land. Heck, this is where the entire country of Portugal gets its name. As well as the countries ending with "ia" and "stan".

Tolkien was about the closest you could get for a dead language omniglot and a walking encyclopedia on eurasian myth, the man knew that mythological names were normally following a silly logic like that. Like, in his translation of Beowulf, he even notes that Beowulf's name would sorta translate to "bee's wolf" or something of the sort to an old english speaker.

"This is a town on a lake. I have called it...Esgaroth. Elvish for 'reed lake'." "Huh. I thought you were going to call it Lake Town" *Tolkein starts chuckling ominously*

And then in a galaxy brain move no writer has topped yet, he then casually drops that EVERYONE has completely different names and he's just writing as if he's translating ancient myths and sagas to comtemporary English for us

On a side note, hearing the Shire theme away from the film footage just emphasises how beautiful a piece of music it is.

I just had to pause and have a good belly-laugh at "Nazi ghouls."

Tolkien manages to blend "cool-sounding name that you wouldn't find anywhere in our modern world" and "name with an (at least reasonably) recognizable meaning". The names aren't out of place, but they aren't obnoxiously pretentious. And they're a pretty faithful reflection of naming conventions of most of humanity's ancient stories and myths.

Don't forget that Tolkein claimed that LOTR was a translation of the Red Book of Westmarch, and, translated back into their original languages, a lot of real towns and places sound very high fantasy indeed. Aylesbury is "Dreadfort", for example, and Crawley is "the Glade of Crows".

It's all humorous and all that, but then you realize most people that have anglo-saxonic ascendancy is named after that they did to earn coin. Shoutout to all the Smiths, Thatchers, Woodman, Cobbler, etc. In fact, I find Tolkien's naming sense very in touch to what you would actually see in a natural environment. People used to name stuff after very obvious local characteristics.

The voice actor for this did an AMAZING job.

I must simply adore the vocal intonation you've put into Tolkien's character, very much befitting of his character.

Hard to imagine that this is the same guy who invented multiple languages for these same books

Thing is, the names we read in the book are not the ACTUAL names. In Tolkien's mind, what he wrote down was a translation from Westron, which was kind of a Lingua Franca of Middle-Earth. The "real" name of Frodo Baggins is Maura Labingi, for instance. And even when "translating', he didn't just come up with gibberish. Quote: "The name Maura has the element maur- (wise, experienced), which Tolkien equated to the Germanic element frod- of the same meaning". So, first he made up fictional languages, then created a complete fictional mythology and several millennia worth of history, then came up with characters and plot outline for The Lord of the Rings story set in this fictional world, then adapted what would sound like complete made up gibberish without reading through tons of appendices into something that sounds like Anglo-Saxon and Germanic mythology and language. Better yet, he encouraged translators not just to translate, but adapt his book in a way that would sound "native". For example, in certain Russian translations Frodo Baggins is translated as "Frodo Sumkin" or "Frodo Torbins", both of which is based on Russian word for a "bag". Which, in turn, makes it sound like it's the name of a villager, as opposed to something like "Aragorn", which sounds epic and big. Update: "Sumkin" is actually from a joke dub of the movie, but "Torbins" is from one of the Russian translation of the books, and I can't quite remember, but I'm sure I saw a few other version based on the same principle.

"What was the name for those big stone creatures, CS Lewis?" "You mean Golems?" "No, the one that turn to stone" "Oh! Trolls" "Yes, trolls, that's it......hmmm.....Golem, eh?"

H.P Lovecraft naming his cat: I should name my cat with a word that brings madness to others

It is actually historical as it matches with his philosophy. He wrote The Hobbit/LOTR/Silmarilion with the intention of creating an ancient mythology for the English isles. He viewed fiction that it shouldn't be about drama or fantastical things, but rather to maintain the constant of moral rightness that it can be maintained and ultimately win no matter the setting it is put in.

Those accents toward the end sounded very genuine. You have a gift for this kind of thing sir. 😊

Even more impressive when you remember he had to do this, like, seven times for each character. “Hmm…Gandalf, Mithrandir, Olorin…still need three more names for that one.”

"I need a name for this metal in this fantasy world" "A mythical metal that is both light and durable" "Ah I got it"

The capital of England has a green park named Green Park, so that's how they name things.

Actually: (hits pipe) oh yes, now that I've created 3 different languages from scratch, I guess I better create some characters to speak them

Unironically how gigachad writers do stuff

I want a Tolkien asmr now, where he just talks and reads his books, and every now and then he smokes his pipe. Honestly great job on this, your voice suits the lines very well. I can imagine his thought process actually playing out like this.

To be fair, wormtongue wasn't his actual surname, it was just a nickname. Given to him for obvious reasons

i know that this video is a joke & all, but due to my immense respect for the late professor tolkien, i'd like to point out the following: besides all of literal english names, these all come out of the incredible language families with different sub-branches & belonging to different historical periods that he naturalistically developed from his made up root 'basic elvish' & 'basic dwarven' languages. when you read into how much skillful work he put into creating just the languages of his world using his deep knowledge of linguistics then you'll truly understand how passionate he was about his creation. it truly was his life'a work & it was a work of pure love. that's when you truly start developing the huge amount of respect tolkien will forever well earnedly deserve. thanks for listening to my tedtalk

Not enough people are talking about how fantastic his voice is

Honestly it doesn’t even feel like there’s even a hint of bad faith in this video, it’s just adorable ❤

While naming a bearded tree "Treebeard" sounds kinda simplistic by today. You can't deny that the names Tolkien has made stick pretty well. Mount Doom is just iconic despite being "Mountain of Doom." Plus, real life is guilty of the same thing. Rocky Mountains are just mountains that are rocky. Same applies if you translate several mythical monsters. Harpy translates to "foul creature" or "malign creature" in english. Not to mention, one of his motivations for his writings was to tell stories to his kids. Inspiration can come from literally anywhere. For a campaign-story thing, I even had a monster with a name that just meant "Mirror thing" or "Reflection" that would jump out from mirrors.

The Faramir and Boromir one killed me 😂

Imagine a story where all of the villainous cities sound similar to words for death and murder, and it turns out that all of the villains just lack imagination and are secretly in a contest to try and out-edge-cringe one another.

This is unironically soothing to listen to

I call this "realistic worldbuilding"

Best thing is, its litelary how things worked back in the day. In slavic mythology most demons/monsters have name given after function or place where they live. Examples : Błotnik - mud-thing Bagunki - swamp-maiden's Borowy - pine-forest-men Świetle - glowing/light-thing Bieda - poverty Łapiduch - ghost/soul-catcher Paskudnik - ugly-b*tch-ass-mf Ofcourse we have also things like Snake-King, Fish-King and 2137 other monsters named "bobo".

"Your love of the halfling's leaf has clearly slowed your mind."

I like how Tolkien’s portrayed in these as a kindly old grandfather figure

That "hmmmmm" is satisfying. Like Siegward's.

“Hmmmm… I’m thinking of a villain who’s eviler than all others. He’s superior in darkness. He’s more goth… AHA!”

Honestly more realistic than fancy fantasy names. You have to remember that the local culture is going to name something that on their native tongue is descriptive of what it actually is.

I don't think there exists a photo of Tolkien without his pipe, it's like a cartoon character.

Balrog in old Norse stands for Crooked-Flame, while Quenyan name of these fallen "angels" is Valaraukar and could be interpreted as Oath-breaker or more correctly, Oath-Wretch(es) in Finnish. Mordor is elusive old English word for mortal sin or sin of primal evil, that coincides with Tolkien's own linguistics. Curiously, in proto-indo-european Mor can mean both darkness and as variation of Mer death. While in Cornish dor means land. So Mordor quite literally is land of darkness, land of death and land of mortal peril. Grima is old Norse word for mask that was also used as a name. Wormtongue is merely what people called him as an insult. Of course, majority of Tolkien's linguistic work is not included in Lord of the Rings books. Westron terms, language which every character uses as common speech, rarely if ever survived into finished product because Tolkien considered it too alien for his readers. In real Middle-Earth, where common speech is Westron, Hobbits are called kuduks. Meriadoc Brandybuck is Kalimac Brandagamba. Peregrin Took's actual name was Razanur Tûc. Samwais Gamgi is Ban Galpsi, short for Banazir Galbasi. We see Middle-Earth through Tolkien's translation of his own invented language, further strengthening notion that this ancient myth has been passed through generations from our own pre-history.

To be fair, this is the logic real people use for naming, so it does feel strangely realistic that for example, the dark and foggy forest is called the Mirkwood by the people who live nearby.

A truly based man who managed to write down my childhood backyard adventures into a wonderful epic.

The LotR trilogy's music is so absolutely perfect, that even while listening to it during a shitpost it makes me want to cry.

Even if he DID come up with names like this, I would still have all the respect for him. Also your voice is incredibly charming.

What a magnificent fellow he was!

Rowling naming her characters: >An asian girl... Hmm... How to call her?

1:38 I lost it here lmfao

as someone who absolutely loves LOTR and the Silmarillion, this was hilarious

How to make elves' names sound elvish? Hmmm... Oh! Elves! El-ves! If I put El or something like it on all names, it might just work! Like... El-rond. Or... Galadri-el. Yes, quiet a grand idea indeed So this is a fellow that sometimes is a bear. I could just call him bear... But there were names that just meant bear, weren't they? Like... Bjorn, i guess. Huh, that first part sounds a bit like "bear"... Yes, Beorn it is. These... dinosaur creatures they have been finding as of late are nasty-looking... "dinosaur", what a strange word... I think it meant "terrible lizard" or something like that... well, "saurus" sounds quite ominous, so it might as well be the terrible part. Goodness, imagine someone called "Sauron". Truly he would be the most terrible of evil-doers, wouldn't he? ...Actually, that's quite useful...

JRR Tolkien truly followed the writer advice of "take a look around the room, picks two things at random, mash them together, and there's your character's name"

I love that every name in LotR is either goofy or absolutely badass and there’s no in between.

Honestly I find the whole video very cute, just an old guy with far more creativity than pretty much anyone in his time thinking up names for his world. Even though by modern standarts they appear unimaginative, it's obvious they sounded nice to him and that's what really matters.

I can't complain, it's amazing and so accurate.

Tolkien studied Nordic languages. He named a character 'Gamling the Old'. 'Gamling' is literally just a slightly rude Swedish word for an old person. It's like calling the character 'Old Guy the Old'.

This is shockingly wholesome. A welcome relief from the nonsense consistently heaped upon us. Thank you.

Humans were never particularly creative at naming things or people. "What do you do for a living? Okay, we will call you smith/cooper/fletcher/wright/fisher" "Your kid's handsome John." *[20 years later]* "Hey Johnson, get over here!" "I think we shall build our town in the Bend of this big river... But what to call it?"

Sorry to disappoint but 99% of cool sounding meaningless names for anything irl are historically just untranslated simple meaningful descriptors. Stringing random sounds together to call things by is the unusual thing.

I know it’s a bit off topic but man there are a lot of pictures of him smoking pipe or just laughing or smiling and together with this music this makes him look like such an incredible and wholesome human ❤

That’s one of the best Patrick Stewart impressions I’ve ever heard. Fits perfectly.

Many of Tolkien's names for things are in what he called the "common speech." Of these, many are translations from the elven tongue. Mount Doom, or Orodruin (Mountain of Fiery-Red) is a perfect example of this

If you don't know the English names, some of these are riddles. I recall having read Shelob somewhere but what was the hobbit surname based on pride taken in hairy feet?

This video makes Tolkien seem like just the absolute nicest, purest old man to ever walk the friggin’ earth and now I’m real sad he’s dead

I found myself chuckling several times during this one. Splendid job, ol' bean!

RIP Tolkien one of the greatest writers of all times!

Tolkien invented new languages and created new worlds around these languages for fun. And he was incredible at it. They guy was a beast.

J.R.R Tolkien is just one of those once in a generation mega genius artists, he is the definition of an educated gentleman with a whimsical side.

I don’t begrudge the method when the results speak for themselves.

Hitler Himmler Sauron Saruman Some Saturday cartoon villain shenanigans here.

Wormtongue was a nickname but naming the duplicitous character with an old word for "mask" was still on the nose.

>Good heavens! I can't seem to find a fitting name for a dark and brutal fallen god >What in the world would be a suiting name for a deity even MORE brutal than the GOTH barbarian warriors of old? >... >Ooh John Tolkien, you mischievous little devil! You did it again!

I ain't going through the easiest of times in my life at the moment and this wholesome humour paired with the LotR soundtrack almost made me burst into tears...

What to name a group of mountains that are made of rocks? Hmm, yes. This will be a TWO pipe problem. **Puff puff**

Goofy as Tolkien may be sometimes (I still remember when he repeatedly used "and" to join descriptors) he does a damn good job when he gets serious. Despite never actually being directly personified or having his speech transcribed at all in the Fall of Gondolin, Melkor is such an evil name that just having another in his presence made the sheer malice of his character practically palpable, that I still remember the tension of his sole scene even though literally nothing happened. All he did was show up and earned more right to use the title Dark Lord than Davoth could ever dream of. But God, do I love Tolkien posting.

H.P. Lovecraft naming his cat: "Hmm... what to call you... maybe after that jazz musician I like. What was tha-.. th... THAT'S IT!"

**hits pipe**

He was so proficient with languages that the insisted, tha the elves in the german books should not be called "Elfen" but "Elben". I love it.

Say what you will, he knew how to make even the dumbest names singe with pure Twee. I mean, Smaug is literally just Smog with one vowel swapped for two, and the snothering greed of the dragon was an honestly pretty literal translation of the smothering greed of London's smog, caring more for money then the livelihood of the citizens of london itself. (See how many people london's smog used to kill before anything was done about it.) His skill wasnt in coming up with unique names, but coming up with a world you'd belive those names in. Who questions why the mountain is called "doom"? Who questions why theres a guy called "wormtounge"? Who questions why the dragon is named after an aspect of fire? We play around after the fact, sure, but Tolkien wasn't trying to make a book of cool names, he was trying to make a world, and why wouldn't the elder tree be named "Treebeard" in that world? Stupid names are real names, and the fact we still talk about his world nearly a century on with barely any extra media attached to it is testimate to the fact he made a world that felt like it existed, at least at one point. This isn't to downplay the video, ether; comedy is but one of many ways we show our appreciation, and the fact anyone thought hard enough about this prompt to come up with this many variations of the joke is proof of that love, just as much as any piece of fanart or loving analysis can be. Tolkien's work is just fun to talk about, no matter what angle you're coming at it from.

"What do I name the dragon? *hits pipe* Smog. Yes, quite."

Can’t wait for humans to join the galactic federation and explain to their new alien friends that they come from a planet that they named after dirt

As a writer it makes me sad the simple times have passed... Back then you could name something which conveyed the meaning perfectly and simply and if your writing was good enough people would praise you. If Tolkien was writing today people would call him unoriginal. No, he conveys meaning with names simply, like is often done in real life.

The whole reading-books-by-the-fireplace thing at the time must've been like us enjoying a good video game in bed.

Honestly its really wholesome seeing him think and be so happy about the names he comes up with

And it was the greatest book series ever written