A miracle has occurred. I have actually made a new bite of the Withywaffle. It’s been really busy recently, but now I’m not busy (hence the new episode.) I hope you enjoy learning what some of the names of main characters and places in the Rings of Power mean!

If you prefer reading to listening, here’s a transcript (again, sometimes paraphrased to make me sound cleverer):

Let me give a happy hello to whoever you are, and a warm welcome back to the Withywaffle. I’m Emma, and this is the Withywaffle, which you already know, but I just have to say it for effect. This is another short little bite of the Withywaffle, as at this time we have no new Rings of Power to talk about, not even any trailers or anything. We do know, however, that season 3 is being filmed.

In this episode, I’ll be talking a bit about some of the names in the Rings of Power and their meanings – both names of people and of places. A wonderful thing about Tolkien is that he invented languages, and all these names are taken from those, so they all have meaning, and many of them have stories. They’re not just random sounds put together that he thought sounded nice. Actually, they might have been in the first place, but then he gave them meaning; he used his favourite sounds to create languages, and out of them come all these lovely sounding names. Many of these will be in Sindarin, which was the common Elvish tongue.

Let’s start with Galadriel, which translates to something like “Maiden crowned with a garland of bright radiance.” Many of these names don’t have direct translations, and there are lots of way you could interpret them, as of course not every English word has a specific counterpart in Elvish. “Galad” means “radiance” – it can refer to the stars, to brightness, light. “Riel” means “crowned maiden.” When you put them together we have “Galad-riel”, “Maiden crowned with radiance,” which obviously refers to her bright, shining blond hair.

A name that’s related to that one is Gil-Galad, which basically translates to “Radiant star”. “Gil” means star, and “Galad”, as we just looked at, means “Radiance”. You could interpret this name either figuratively or literally. He’s a bright star that everyone follows, because he’s the leader, or perhaps… Well, let me quote this part of the Fall of Gil-Galad from the Lord of the Rings. It says:

His shining helm afar was seen.
The countless stars of Heaven’s field
Were mirrored in his silver shield.

Maybe the name was in reference to his armor, and that was very shiny.

Now let’s look at the name Elrond. This one’s a bit more difficult. Of the two word parts, “El” could be either “Star” or “Elf”, and “Rond” is like a cave. It could be translated “Elf of the Cave”, perhaps because that’s where the Sons of Fëanor found him after the place where he lived was sacked, also by the Sons of Fëanor, and then he was raised by one of them, Maglor. That’s a possible interpretation of that name.

Celebrimbor is Sindarin for “Silver hand”. It’s the Sindarin translation of the Quenya name “Telperinquar”, which means the same thing. This name would be in reference to his brilliant craftsmanship.

Mirdania is an original name made up by those who made the show, and it come from the word “Mirdan”, which means “Jewel-smith”. I think we all know why she’s called that.

Here’s a Dwarvish name: Durin. That just means “King”. Durin was the name of the first dwarf, who was High King over all the other dwarves. Many of his descendants were also named Durin because they looked particularly like him. The one in the Rings of Power is Durin IV, his father being Durin III, the other Durin in the Rings of Power.

If you were paying attention while watching, you probably know what “Annatar” means. Like he himself said, it’s “A sharer of gifts”. It literally means “the Lord of Gifts”. The “Tar” means “King”, like in “Tar- Míriel”. (Though there it means “Queen”, so it’s just a ruler in general.)

Speaking of Míriel, over in Númenor (I hope you appreciate all these accented letters; they’re very tiresome) Pharazôn is an Adûnaic name. It translates to “Golden”. When he’s king he gets the prefix “Ar”, so his name is then “Ar-Pharazôn”. “Ar” just means “King”, like “Tar”.

Here are a few place names. Númenor is a Quenya word, and it means “West land”. That’s pretty self-explanatory.

In Eregion, “Ereg” mean s “Holly”, and “ion” is a suffix that means “region”, so it’s the “Land of Holly”.

Lindon is similar. It has a similar suffix, and “Lind” is “to make Music”, so it’s the “Land of Music”.

Rhûn means “East” in Sindarin, so that’s just the east. (simple innit?)

Mordor is another Sindarin word that basically translates to “Black land”.

I just think it’s interesting seeing what these names mean, because there’s a lot of lore we can dig into as regards Tolkien. I definitely haven’t covered all the names in the show, and I’ll probably come back and do some more of these sometime. It was good to see you again, even though I didn’t actually see you. It was good for you to hear me (Or read this). Have a lovely day and a lovely week, go eat some waffles, and I’ll see you next time.

(Lovely outro music)