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Dreamflower's Musings  by Dreamflower 3 Review(s)
VirtuellaReviewed Chapter: 7 on 9/8/2009
How very interesting! Thanks for doing suhc a thorough piece of research.

That's a noteworthy point, that the hobbits seems to have virtually no surnames derived from occupations, even though in many European languages, such names make up a large fraction of the total of all names.

I think it is so - well, whimsical, I suppose, that Tolkien went to so much trouble in creating this fiction of having translated everything from ancient documents. And rather cute, actually.

Author Reply: You are welcome! Even though it was hard work, it was fun.

Yes, I thought it odd that the only one to be found was "Roper", and it wasn't truly clear if that actually became the name. Later, in the Fourth Age, we have "Gardner", But it apparently doesn't stick as a surname, since Frodo's grandson is named "Harding of the Hill".

To him, the point of the story *was* the languages; he sometimes said he created Arda to have a place where his languages could be spoken.

Aunt DoraReviewed Chapter: 7 on 9/8/2009
This information is so valuable to writers of happenings in the Shire. Great timing for me. Thank you for it.

Author Reply: You are very welcome! That's exactly what I hoped when I did it. Naming hobbits is serious work, as another friend of mine told me, LOL! But it's fun, too.

AndreaReviewed Chapter: 7 on 9/8/2009
Dear Dreamflower,

I found this article very interesting! Thank you for all the time you spent on doing the research.

Mr. Lordell goes on to point out that Pippin was the name of Charlemagne's grandson, and shows that the name Lotho also derived from the Carolingian line

You know, in the German town where I live and which is very old, we have a Pipin Street (only with one "p" in the middle).
And this Pippin is one of the Carolingians you mentioned. I'm not quite sure, but I'd say that the street name refers to Pippin the Short, the son of Charles Martell and the father of Charlemagne.
Charlemagne built a palace here and met with Pope Leo in 799.

So, you see, the Carolingians used first names more than once (like the Tooks). I found many Drogos in their family tree and even a Fredegar!

This is really interesting :-)

Author Reply: Yes; sometimes Pippin is spelled Pipin or even Pepin, but it's basically the same name! I knew there was a Drogo in the line, but I did not know of the Fredegar, though that doesn't surprise me.

It really is interesting to see how much work JRRT put into his hobbits and the Shire! Even though it was a lot of work, it was also a lot of fun.

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