Nelyafinwë ( Nelyo), his father name, is translated by Tolkien as “ ‘Finwë third’ in succession”. This sounds like Fëanor was attempting to claim the Noldor should practise strict father to eldest son primogeniture (although he would likely have expected it to be an academic question, but then as a language scholar Fëanor clearly have had an academic side) and may also have been a retort to the father names of his half-brothers, Nolofinwë and Arafinwë, which we are told he was not pleased by. I’ve chosen to bracket these together as virtually everything Tolkien says about the appearance of the sons comes under discussions of their names. Names and their meanings were important to Tolkien, but he quite often came up with a name first and then tried to explain its meaning in his languages later (‘Maedhros’ seems to have given him particular trouble).Īccording to Tolkien the Elves (or at least the Elves of Valinor) commonly had at least two names, one given by the father and the other by the mother, they might also be given an epessë or nickname. To complicate matters further the names of most principle Silmarillion characters are explained as Sindarin versions of names originally given in the Quenya, or High-elven, language, sometimes straightforward translations but sometimes not. So Fëanor is a semi-Sindarised form of Fëanáro, ‘spirit of fire’, and Fëanáro is a mother name, Fëanor’s father name being Curufinwë, meaning ‘Skilled Finwë’. Tolkien did not give both father and mother names for all of his principle characters, but he did do so for Fëanor’s sons, and the details may be found in PM 2 xi. Fëanor called all his sons ‘something-Finwë’, stressing their ancestry. (The name ‘Finwë’ according to Tolkien had no remembered meaning.) Apparently this produced names which were rather a mouthful, for shortened forms of each are given by Tolkien in brackets. However all the sons except Curufin preferred, and were generally called by, their mother names, and the usual forms of their names derived from these.Īt a fairly early stage in his composition Tolkien produced a list of Anglo-Saxon names of most of his principal Elves. This was part of an elaborate construction according to which the legendary stories of the Silmarillion had been brought back to England by an Anglo-Saxon mariner named Ælfwine who had accidentally found his way to Tol Eressëa. The Anglo-Saxon names of Fëanor’s sons seem mostly to be chosen for similarity of sound rather than meaning, although Dægred and Dægmund for Maedhros and Maglor are exceptions. The distinguishing epithets given to them, however, are rather more interesting and therefore names and epithets are listed here. The details can be found in SM III.įor the sake of completeness one may note the Quenya form of the name Celebrimbor was given by Tolkien as Tyelpinquar (or Telperimpar in Telerin) and meant ‘silver-fist’. No other name is given, and there is no clue as to whether it was father name or mother name. Here is theAppendix to my Fëanorian essay - Tolkien linguistics aheadĪppendix I: Names and Appearance of the Sons of Fëanor
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