Snowflake

Remember yourself reading all things Tolkien for the first time? Surely, all the distant “magical” lands, Elves and dragons took your breath away (or failed to do so). But there always were these parts where you could not restrain yourself from laughing out loud because of the very way the words you were reading sound.

Those names!

In case English is not your mother tongue, chances are that you’ve had a feeling (once, at the very least) Tolkien was purposedly trolling you and all of your fellow Finnish/German/Italian/(choose for yourself) speakers. In case English is your native language, you’ve probably had this feeling as well.

Here goes a list being compiled with the help of people mentioned at the end of the post. If you wish to contribute, please don’t hesitate and send me a note (or two, for the sake of double-checking); I’ll update this very post.

Here we go.

BARAN

Russian. Literally ‘ram’ (male sheep).

BELEG

German. Literally ‘receipt’.

BEREG

Russian. Literally ‘shore’.

BEREN

German. When said out loud, sounds like the German word for ‘berries’ (Beeren).

CELEBORN

Teleporno. Self-explanative. In every language.

CELEBRIMBOR

Czech. ‘Brambor‘ means ‘potato‘.

CELEGORM (Turcafinwe)

Italian.  ‘Turco’ means ‘Turkish’. 

Russian. ‘Turka’ = ‘cezve’.

Spanish. ‘Turca’ equals ‘penis’.

CURUFIN (Curvo)

Italian. ‘Curvo’ means ‘bent’.

Polish. ‘Curvo’ means ‘(you) whore’.

Romanian. ‘Curufin’ means ‘the smooth a$$’.

Russian. ‘Curva’ goes as a not-that-wide-spread synonym for ‘whore’, ‘prostitute’.

ELENDIL

German. Sounds weird (but also poetic) because ‘Elend’ means ‘great misery’.

FINGOLFIN (Nolofinwe)

Finnish. Nolo means ‘embarrassed’ or ‘awkward’.

Latin. Nolo stands for ‘I don’t want’.

GROIN

English. In human anatomy, the groin is the junctional area between the abdomen and the thigh on either side of the pubic bone. [Wiki]

ILMEN

Finnish. ‘Ilma’ = ‘air’.

MAEDHROS (Nelyafinwe)

Finnish. ‘Nelya’ means ‘four’ (and not third).

MAGLOR (Kanafinwe)

Finnish. Kana means ‘chicken’.

MANDOS

Russian. The first four-five letters have a stunning resemblance with the vulgar word for women’s genitalia.

MANWE

German. Mann-Weh is pretty much literally (though not really used) ‘man pain’.

MENELTARMA

Polish. ‘Menel’ is colloquial for ‘drunken hobo’.

SAURON (Annatar)

Finnish. Anna is a common girl’s name and in finnish language -tar suffix is sometimes added to a title to make a feminine variation of it.

SILMARILLI

Finnish. ‘Silmä’ means ‘eye’.

UINEN

Finnish. ‘Uida’ is ‘to swim’.

VORONWE

Russian. ‘Voron’ stands for ‘raven’.

CONTRIBUTORS

@ancamnarvienn

@centawen

@clouds-of-wings

@doegred-main

@frillyfacefins

@grahamology

@macalaures

@mutisija

@omnomnomwisenom

# the close fraternal relationship between penis finwe and whore finwe

Ainu( r) - ainut/ainoa in Finnish, meaning ‘the only one’  Annatar - is already listed, but I thought I’d elaborate a little. Anna is a common Finnish girls’ name, and derives from the word antaa, ‘to give’. However, the form ‘anna’ is an imperative, and actually means ‘give me’. Which is rather fitting in this context. Ancalimë / Ancalimon:  most certainly not related, but the finnish word for ‘duck’ is ankka, and I always found this rather amusing. Calacirya/Kalacirya: close to the pronunciation of kalakirja, which would technically mean ‘fish book’ or ‘fishing book’.  Calavénë/Kalavéntë: kala means fish, vene means boat. In the early drafts, there was very much a boat shape involved.   Calma/Calmatéma- : kalma means death  Cuiviénen: In the early drafts, the name of the elven haven was Koivië-néni, which sounds suspiciously close to Koivuniemi, a common Finnish place name meaning ‘birch cove’.  Dúnedain/Dúnadan: this is honestly just crack theory at this point, but the word is very similar to the old stadi slang term ‘duunata’ (derives from Swedish ‘done’). Duunari is a manual laborer.   Halla: ‘frost’ (halla literally means frost), but Tolkien chose it to mean tall/long in quenya.   Harma: harmaa is ‘grey’ in Finnish.   Helcar: another complete crack theory, but helkkari is an old slang curse that one might use in the same way as ‘bloody’ in ‘bloody cold’ etc. One of the most popular contexts for the word is to exclaim how incredibly cold it is outside, on helkkarin kylmä.   Huor: huora, ‘a whore’. I rather doubt this is what Tolkien was inspired by lmao.   Maia( r): Maija is another common Finnish name, but also an old slang term for the police.   Melkor: another one I’m very doubtful about, but melko means ‘quite’.  Náin: literal translations would be either ‘I marry’ or ‘I fuck’. Pick your favorite.  Ori: my sweet summer child, your name actually means stallion (or a beefy handsome man, oldish slang term)  Saeros: very close to the pronunciation of ‘sick’ and/or ‘twisted’.  Timpinen / Tinfang Warble: Timpinen is just a legit Finnish surname.  Vala( r): an oath (to swear an oath: vannoa vala), but also meaning ‘to mold/to create’ when in verb form. (to cast iron: valaa rautaa, to create the world, valaa maailma, archaic)   Valarauka: see above. Raukka means ‘poor’ or ‘wretched’ in Finnish.   Voronwë: voro means ‘thief’  

Fingolfin/Fingon: ‘fing’ means ‘fart’

Pharazon/Faramir: pronounced as ‘farazon’ it starts to be funny, ‘far’ is an older/smoother word for ‘ass’

Rohan: literally ‘he runs’ in Hungarian, (but on my opinion it just makes the name speaking: you can imagine the rumbling crowd of horses as they run, etc.)

Boldog: literally ‘happy’

Thuringwethil: ‘turi’ is a shorter word for a second hand shop, ‘ing’ means ‘shirt’ and ‘vet’ means to put seeds into the ground

Beleg: ‘belek’ means ‘guts’ in Hungarian

Bard: ‘bárd’ is ‘hatchet’

Legolas: ‘leg...bb’ is a circumfix with the meaning ‘the most....’, written after pronunciation ‘Legolasz’ with a -bb (legolaszabb) means ‘the most italian’ in a weird way like ,,I am the most italian of all”, it sounds grammatically difficult but there are plenty of very bad jokes with this in the Hungarian lotr community

Gil-Galad: ‘galád’ is a word for ‘evil’

Tar-(Mairon/Miriel/etc): ‘tar’ means ‘bald’... I don’t have to explain why is this weird when you read about a beautiful queen

Turgon: ‘furgon’ is ‘van’

Morgoth: ‘morgott’ means ‘he growled’

Gondolin/Gondor: ‘gondol’ is ‘he thinks’

Tinúviel: ‘tinó’ is an older form for a castrated young bull, it doesn’t make any sense until you pronounce the name

Boromir: ‘boromér’(t)’ means ‘for my wine’ (‘bor’ is wine)

Denethor: ‘de ne Thor’ is ‘anything but Thor’

Balrog: ,,‘bal’ means ‘left’, ‘jobb’ means ‘right’ so if there is a balrog then there must be a jobbrog too” (don’t ask how many times did I hear this)

Este: literally ‘evening’

Curvo: ‘kurva’ is ‘whore’ here too

Valarauka: pronounced as ‘valaróka’, ‘róka’ means ‘fox’ (or vomit in another meaning)

Saeros: ‘sáros’ means ‘muddy, dirty’

Carcaroth’s older form Karkaras: ‘kakas’ means ‘cock’