What’s in a name?

“The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,

It isn’t just one of your holiday games;

You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter

When I tell you, a cat must have THREE

DIFFERENT NAMES”
– T.S. Eliot, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats

As we’ve discussed extensively in class, Tolkien has made the primacy of languages in the Legendarium very clear. In the famous letter 131, he states that “behind my stories is now a nexus of languages” (Letters, p. 143); later on, in the letter 294, he says explicitly that “a language requires a suitable habitation, and a history in which it can develop” (Letters, p. 375). This idea runs deep in Tolkien’s creative process, as he repeatedly claims that he first developed the languages (scientifically, as he asserts) and later on “discovered” the stories behind them: he seems to believe that a language cannot be “real” if it has no stories to sustain it. When we consider the case of invented languages like Esperanto this point certainly rings true: it is “a human language bereft of the inconveniences due to too many successive cooks […] the ideal artificial language” (Lost Road, p. 377) as Tolkien describes it. Esperanto does feel artificial (as in, not real) because it has no mythology behind it: as no one inherited this language and it carries no stories associated with its phonemes and structures, it is no wonder no one speaks it. This relationship between language and history, then, brings us to the question of names in Tolkien’s works. Back to letter 131, he claims that “out of these languages [he invented] are made nearly all the names that appear in my legends. This gives a certain character (a cohesion, a consistency of linguistic style, and an illusion of historicity) to the nomenclature” (Letters, p. 143). In the letter to Mr. Rang, he reaffirms this perception: “this construction [the nomenclature of LOTR], the product of very considerable thought and labor, has achieved (as I hoped) a verisimilitude, which assists probably in the ‘literary belief’ in the story as historical” (Letters, p. 379). That suffices to show that Tolkien’s interweaving of languages – names, in particular – and stories are a crucial aspect of his sub-creation, and that this process lends itself to fostering “secondary belief,” which is his goal all along. Now what does that tell us about the role of names?

First off, we need to consider the artistic aspect of languages and names to Tolkien, as it points to Tolkien’s broader understanding of epistemology. In many places, Tolkien makes it clear that he considers linguistic invention a form of art, and therefore the aesthetic dimension of languages (their “flavor” as he sometimes says) is very important to him. Indeed, back to the letter to Mr. Rang, he says that “this process of invention was/is a private enterprise undertaken to give pleasure to myself by giving expression to my personal linguistic ‘aesthetic’ or taste and its fluctuations” (Letters, p. 380). That is, Tolkien’s work is essentially grounded in the correct choice of phonemes and phonetic structures/combinations that give rise to his languages (and, downstream of this process, to his stories). However, this endeavor is not simply “code-making” as he says in the Night 67 of the Notion Club Papers. As Lowdham explains, there is a great degree of freedom when inventing a language and thus it is “difficult to fit meaning to any given sound-pattern” (Sauron Defeated, p. 238), but one is free to do so arbitrarily if one wants to – that would be simply code-making. Another thing entirely is "language-building," in which one needs to “find a relationship, sound plus sense, that satisfies, that is when made durable” (S.D, p. 239). With that in mind it is easy to understand why Tolkien chose the title “Lord of the Rings” to his work, because it contains the same phonemes as “cellar door,” a combination in which he found pleasure thanks to the association of form and sense it carries (as discussed in English and Welsh). It is also why Tolkien first invented (discovered?) the stories of the third age by scribbling “in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit” in several languages in the 1930s, without knowing why it sounded so pleasing to him. All of this shows that Tolkien’s epistemology follows a pattern: phonemes, then sense, then stories.

This conception leads us to understand why Tolkien was so fascinated by the changes in the language across time, in the notion of language “not as a pure structure, without before and after, but as growth in time” (L.R., p. 378). The changes in the phonemes – through the actions of "many cooks" across time – paralleled the development of the stories of the peoples that spoke those particular languages, which explains Tolkien’s creation of the ambitious and complex Legendarium as a canvas in which his languages could grow. I think that this notion helps explain two things we discussed last class. First, it explains why Tolkien would always get frustrated when trying to create a complete etymology to his languages: it is precisely because they are so “organic” – that is, the stories affected them, and they affected the stories as Tolkien conceived them throughout the years. As Christopher says, he found itself in such a maze of references in his father’s works that the only way to determine a coherent sequence of events was following the philological changes themselves. Second, and most important, it is precisely because of the close intertwining of the languages and stories Tolkien created that he decried the practice of “root-hunting” (seeking external philological sources to find meaning in specific aspects of his literary corpus). As he insists in the letter to Mr. Rang, all of the outside sources of his nomenclature (which he did not invent) were mere “sound-sequence” inspirations derived from several real-world languages (except in the case of Earendil). In this sense, ‘Sauron’ bears no relationship with the Greek word for lizard because the name 'Sauron' was conceived specifically within Tolkien’s own linguistic systems. 

This close relationship between phonemes, sound, sense and stories are well-represented throughout Tolkien’s creations. In night 67 of the Notion Club Papers, for instance, Lowdham and Jeremy begin to “experience” the fall of Númenor, as if they were physically transported there as soon as they began to make sense of the Adunaic verses. Similarly, we can see this relationship when Frodo’s mind slips to other sceneries when he listens to the elven songs (which he didn’t even understand fully) in Rivendell; or when he and the hobbits travelled mentally to other places as Tom Bombadil told them his old stories. As for us, readers, isn’t this the exact feeling we have while reading LOTR? That is, we enter Middle Earth and feel the Secondary Reality as real when we read the Legendarium – we achieve, as Tolkien would say, "literary belief" through the effects that both language and the stories have on us.

Back to the question of names: our last class discussion indicates some clues as to what Tolkien is doing in this respect. In Dana Gioia’s poem Words, for instance, we read that “to name is to know and remember.” This notion that names are tied to knowledge and remembrance evokes Tolkien’s Mythopoeia when he says, “trees are not ‘trees,’ until so named and seen.” This means that names are, for Tolkien, a way to convey the stories of things and characters, a way to let us know them! As Peter Kreeft says (1), "things constitute a 'world' only by the creative word of the author, who names them." That is, the stories of the characters come alive through their names, and the names are what allow us to know these stories. The various names that Aragorn and Gandalf have among the many peoples of Middle-Earth, for one, reveal to us fragments of their adventures in the Legendarium. We get to know specific parts of their essence through those names – Aragorn means ‘noble king’ in Sindarin, but he is also known as ‘Strider’ in Westron. This may seem like a simple narrative device, but each of the names (and their philological construction) conveys us deeper insights into Aragorn’s history and personality, and shows us glimpses of the many events that he lived through. 

A final thought: I deliberately said “parts of their essence” above because I do not think that Tolkien believed that names conveyed the true essence of a character. Otherwise, why would he give many names to his characters? Would we be able to really get to know them, since we can only read the stories in English, as Tolkien translated the stories from Westron, which in turn might not even have contained their real names? I do not think so. I believe that Tolkien intended the Legendarium, as with all sub-creation, to give us refractions of one’s true essence, which is known only by God (the ultimate Author). If that holds true, Tolkien would reject Le Guin’s notion that true names give us power over other people – even though the Ents seem to allude to that danger to the hobbits. Having power over someone is precisely what the One Ring does and is definitely not a notion that Tolkien would ascribe to. 

- LR

External References:
(1) Peter Kreeft. 2005. The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind the Lord of the Rings, p. 158.