No kidding. There is not a single character name or place name that sounds dumb or made-up. Unlike most fantasy writers. Tolkien was a linguist. If you've ever read Beowulf, you read his translation. He was delighted to discover Finnish, a legendarily difficult language. To him, it was like a treasure box of vocabulary and grammar. The only one that came close was "Staddle", a suburb of Bree. That's it, though. Pages and pages and pages of excellent names that make sense. They even sound like their languages. Rohan names all sound like they're related, Elvish, Black Speech with its harsh, guttural consonants. Just outstanding all around.
I suppose his worst mistake was making Saruon and Saruman so similar-sounding. Too close to his own material, I guess he didn't realize readers could easily confuse the two.
No kidding. There is not a single character name or place name that sounds dumb or made-up. Unlike most fantasy writers. Tolkien was a linguist. If you've ever read Beowulf, you read his translation. He was delighted to discover Finnish, a legendarily difficult language. To him, it was like a treasure box of vocabulary and grammar. The only one that came close was "Staddle", a suburb of Bree. That's it, though. Pages and pages and pages of excellent names that make sense. They even sound like their languages. Rohan names all sound like they're related, Elvish, Black Speech with its harsh, guttural consonants. Just outstanding all around.
I suppose his worst mistake was making Saruon and Saruman so similar-sounding. Too close to his own material, I guess he didn't realize readers could easily confuse the two.
Literally right below you is someone mentioning an elf named Teleporno just saying
ahh, but there were very serious linguistic reasons for naming him that. it's not funny. stop giggling. it's just a coincidence.
Stop tittering while we're discussing the deeds of the ancient elven king Sloppydiarrhea
i'm not familiar with that name, but Elmo is canon.