Was Pippin named after Gandalf?
 

Apples aside, Pippin is named an etymological synonym for "pilgrim", and the "razan" of his name certainly looks like it was derived from Sindarin "randir". Given Gandalf's apparently long association with Shire-Hobbits, how plausible is it that Razanur Tuk was named after (an ancient and corrupted tale of) Mithrandir the Grey Pilgrim?

Obviously not at time of writing; but Tolkien did go out of his way not only to define 'peregrin' as a traveller, rather than say a bird, but also to give a Westron version which has phonetic similarities to Gandalf's name.

For bonus points: Pippin's father is Paladin, which Wiktionary tells me means a knight (obviously), is derived from "palace", and originally meant one of the Twelve Companions of Charlemagne. It's a stretch, but... there are twelve Houses of Gondolin, and the lord of one of them may have returned to Middle-earth alongside Mithrandir. Could Paladin's Westron name come from a nickname/epesse of Glorfindel after his return? I know, it's a stretch, but it would make sense for the father-and-son Elvish names to be from the same ancient tale.

hS

Those Tooks. See, that's why no self-respecting hobbit will have anything to do with them. Naming their children after adventurers of the Big Folk fairy tales. Elves and Dragons! Cabbages and potatoes, that's more like. At least they had the decency to shorten the lad's name to an apple. ;)

:D I did take a look to see if the various Took Thains might have used Mannish versions of the names of the kings of Arthedain, but nothing matched up. Shame, because that would have been hilarious.

hS

I think it's less a matter of naming conventions fitting Elvish historical personages, and more a feature of the Hobbit squirearchy putting on airs. That, and Tolkien having a bit of fun.

Ever notice the further one goes up the fantastical family trees of wealthy Hobbit families, their names get more and more absurdly non-Hobbitish? Climbing up the geneological ladder one can't help finding a wealth of grandiose appendages tacked on to scions of high houses:

Scholarly references in Gerontius (perhaps from Cardinal Newman's "Dream of Gerontius"), Isengrim (Latin Ysengrimus, the wolf from the Old French fabliaux "Reynard the Fox"), Adelard (Adelard of Bath, a scholastic philosopher), Odovacar (a Gothic king) and Heribald (mentioned in Bede's "Historiam Ecclesiasticam Gentis Anglorum"); Latinate forms Belladonna, Hugo and Gundolpho; from Spain, Esmerelda, Ferdinand and Sancho; the Welsh Meriadoc, Gorbadoc and Gormodoc; a smattering of Germanic in Filibert and Gerda; and lastly, Frankish or Norman Odo, Otho, Otto, Fredegar, Paladin, Peregrine and also Pippin (from the Frankish Pepin, first king of the Franks and son of Charles Martel).

And then there's poor Samwise, holding up the ladder like all stolid Old English peasants.

Definitely true, and the names are hilarious! The fact that some of the highfalutin families have names like "Bolger" make it even more so: there's a beautiful mismatch in the names of Odovacar Bolger or Adamanta Chubb.

But at the same time, Tolkien makes it clear that they are names of historical people:

So I was definitely looking the wrong way with the Arnorian kings, and I don't think there are any named Northmen far enough back to have inspired Hobbit names. It does suggest the possibility that a Tookish landowner could call his especially fierce dog something that sounds a lot like Scatha, though - or even Smaug. And Pip is definitely named for a "legendary traveller" with an Elvish name.

In HoME XII, I think Tolkien talks about the Stoorish Brandybucks using names from the area of Dunland (which from a fanwriter perspective means we could use Welsh for Dunlending, right? :D), but again we don't have any names from far enough back... except for the kin of Tal-Elmar. I wonder which of Merry's ancestors was actually named after Mogru, Master of Agar? :D

hS

I think you meant first Carolingian king of the Franks. The house of Merovech had been ruling them for some two and a half centuries.

That is what I meant; unfortunately, that is not what I typed.

Interestingly enough, there is a Chronicle of Fredegar who compiled the annals of the Franks, including the eras of Roman, Merovingian and Carolingian rule.

No word on Fredegar's weight (or whether there was actually a "Fredegar" who wrote the chronicle), but the mythological aspects of the chronicle are interesting. For instance, the line of Merovech included a creature referred to as a "quinotaur"

No bull.

I just finished reading a most interesting book, The Dark Queens, covering the tumultuous lives of Brunnhild (yes, that one, or at least the real one) and her sometime sister-in-law Fredegund; the former a sort of cross between Elizabeth the Great and Catherine de Medici, and the latter a fullblown Lucrezia Borgia. Fortunately for us, most of their lives and fascinating (and bloody) doings were recorded by Gregory of Tours, a formidable historian.

I love the Merovingian period because it exists on the fringes of the Roman, the medieval and the legendary world. This was, after all, the period during which King Arthur was busy not existing in Britain! And Brunnhild herself went into the Cauldron of Story and, apparently because this Visigothic princess was for a time Queen Regent of Frankish Burgundy, was translated by 150 years and 150 miles to get tangled in the fall of Gundahari and the Rhenish Burgundians, and thence the Nibelungenlied, Volsungasaga and Ring des Nibelungen...