Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Stupid Hobbit Names!
Ariel was posting recently about the sad lack of Het Romance fics circulating recently. I haven't been reading or writing het for a year now - but some of my favourite stories do belong to this genre, so I thought I'd have a shot at writing a full length story with F/OC. I've written two chapters but might have to change some details as I think I've been pasting together bits of other fics again (I hate it when that happens - they seem to hide in my memory and then pretend to be original - Grrr!) but my main problem is coming up with convincing new hobbit names. I've never read anyone else's fic that contained a stupid and unconvincing hobbit name - but try as I might pretty much all my attempts are laughable. Anyone got any tips?
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I raid the hobbit family trees. :) It's no use my making up hobbit names: Tolkien was just too darned clever with language.From Appendix F: 'To their maid-children Hobbits commonly gave the names of flowers or jewels. To their man-children they usually gave names that had no meaning at all in their daily language; and some of their women's names were similar. Of this kind are Bilbo, Bungo, Polo, Lotho, Tanta, Nina and so on. There are many inevitable but accidental references to names we now have or know: for instance Otho, Odo, Drogo, Dora, Cora, and the like. These names I have retained, although I have usually anglicised them by altering their endings, since in Hobbit-names a was a masculine ending and o and e were feminine.'Hobbit-women are easier than hobbit-men, since so many hobbitlasses are named for flowers or jewels: Rose, Celandine, Violet, Daisy, Lily, Poppy, Peony, Marigold, Diamond, Pearl, Ruby, Opal, etc. So, pick a flower or a jewel, and go from there. What about Amber? :)I've seen quite a few Posies pop up in fanfiction. Posy seems a plausible hobbit-name to me. Then there are the names from canon which are plays on words: Belladonna, Donamira, Mirabella (the names of Bilbo's mother and her sisters). And names which sound like human ones: Nina, Esmeralda, Dora, Laura (yes, there's a Laura in the Baggins family tree). Have fun! :)
For male names I raid Gregory of Tours' History of the Franks (since Tolkien used a lot of Frankish names) and other early medieval histories. For women's names I would open up Mrs. Grieves' A Modern Herbal (my bible for pre-20th century herblore) and skim through until I found a plant name that sounded right. Since my stories are so Frodo/Sam-centric, I haven't had to make much of an effort up to this point, but I agree that it's important to get them right.
((((Hugs)))) Thanks for your support - it was the encouragement of people here that got me over to that surgery - I'd never have gone otherwise. I hope I didn't paint my family in a bad light - they are changing their minds and are, I think, a little regretful now that they didn't encourage me to get help in the past. I can't fault their love and dedication to me and my family.Now I have to pluck up the courage to go. I may sound like I'm being all confident and positive - but the thought of sitting down with a stranger and talking about my personal feelings is very, very scary and I'm not sure how I'm going to find the courage to push myself to go. :0
Thanks Pearl! :) It's not until you try and invent one that you realise how clever these names really are. They seem so simple and straightforward and yet - to get them to sound right is really, really hard.I think I'll use some combinations of existing names - it seems safest. Wow - I didn't realise I'd given my daughter a hobbit name - cool! :)
It's funny you should mention 'A Modern Herbal' - honestly, I was just looking at an old, dusty copy of that same book, sitting high up on a shelf in my living room, last night - thinking what a useful book it would be for digging out interesting bits of hobbity herblore. I got it down this evening and spent an hour just pouring over it - I love the country names for the plants, they are just so quirky and lyrical (and some sound quite rude!) Thanks for pointing it out to me! BTW - I absolutely loved your moth-fic - I just can't get the image of those radiant feelers out of my head!
A Modern Herbal is excellent in every way--for the herblore, for information as to which plants are indigenous to northern Europe or when they were introduced, the wonderful country names (and yes, they are quite rude, some of them), the recipes for various tinctures and unguents.... ;)Thanks! I'm really much more of a canon purist than you would think; I certainly never imagined myself putting feelers on poor Frodo. But once I'd thought of it, I couldn't get the idea out of my head either.
What an interesting post and the comments are interesting, too. I'm no writer but I'm a grateful reader. I love all those hobbit names.
((((Hugs you back!))))I can't tell you how much I appreciate the love and support I'm getting. Thank you! Sorry to have worried you!
LOL! Whatever happened to that Het Romance? I don't think I got past the first chapter. I'm purely a F/S girl these days! This is interesting for me too, Julchen, like a little trip back in time. It's interesting to see how my tastes have changed, and I still have trouble thinking up original hobbit names. :-)
"I'm purely a F/S girl these days!"Same here dearest and this will never change ...You're enjoying your trip back in time? That's wonderful! Walking together is always wonderful. Have a nice weekend my dear!*waves and smiles*
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