Finding Footing in a Forest of Fins: Name Etymology as a Characterization Technique of the Finwëan Noldor
This paper was originally presented at the Tolkien at UVM Conference, on April 7, 2018, in the Waterman Building at the University of Vermont.
Abstract
The Silmarillion is a rather slim volume for the amount of history--and especially the number of characters--it contains. There are 213 named characters in The Silmarillion, each receiving a median of just five mentions each. While there are notable exceptions--as the three most-mentioned characters in the text, Melkor, Fëanor, and Túrin receive more than two hundred mentions each--even characters who drive the plot in important ways sometimes receive scant attention, and very little of that attention is spent on characterization. Not surprisingly, many first-time readers of The Silmarillion report having trouble keeping the characters--all those names that begin with or include the element fin--straight in their minds.
In an untitled and unfinished essay written in the late 1960s, J. R. R. Tolkien explains how a phonological change in Quenya was a driving force behind the sundering of the sons of Finwë. In this essay--published in The Peoples of Middle-earth and titled The Shibboleth of Fëanor by Christopher Tolkien--J. R. R. Tolkien also provides Quenya names and their etymologies for most of the characters belonging to the House of Finwë.
The Shibboleth of Fëanor shows how language and story were inextricably entwined in Tolkien's imagination. As he considered how an existing storyline could be employed to solve a historical phonological conundrum, with the linguistic detail serving to embellish an important episode in the history of the Noldor. It is almost impossible to imagine that Tolkien gave his characters Quenya names in that same essay, explained those names, and did not consider them likewise in the context of the existing Silmarillion history. This paper will use The Shibboleth of Fëanor to illustrate how Tolkien used linguistics, and etymology of names in particular, to develop the stories of the legendarium. It will also explore how the names of Finwë's descendents fit with the Silmarillion story as it existed in the late 1960s, with special attention paid to how those names add depth and detail to the characterization of the Finwëan Noldor.
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