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Originally Posted by Robert M. Adams
Above all, Tolkien has a fascination with names for their own sake that will probably seem excessive to anyone whose favorite light reading is not the first book of Chronicles.
>>>It came to pass [Chapter Ten informs us] during the second age of the captivity of Melkor that Dwarves came over the Blue Mountains of Ered Luin into Beleriand. Themselves they named Khazâd, but the Sindar called them Naugrim, the Stunted People, and Gonnhirrim, Masters of Stone. Far to the east were the most ancient dwellings of the Naugrim, but they had delved for themselves great halls and mansions, after the manner of their kind, in the eastern side of Ered Luin; and those cities were named in their own tongue Gabilgathol and Tumunzahar. To the north of the great height of Mount Dolmed was Gabilgathol, which the Elves interpreted in their tongue Belegost, that is Mickleburg; and southward was delved Tumunzahar, by the Elves named Nogrod, the Hollowbold. Greatest of all the mansions of the Dwarves was Khazad-dûm, the Dwarrowdelf, Hadhodrond in the Elvish tongue, that was afterwards in the days of its darkness called Moria; but it was far off in the Mountains of Mist beyond the wide leagues of Eriador, and to the Eldar came but as a name and a rumour from the words of the Dwarves of the Blue Mountains.<<<
Three or four names for each city of the Dwarves represent only a very small beginning; there is also an intricate genealogy of Elves to be mastered, a complete pantheon of Valar, various groups and combinations of men, plus a whole spectrum of special creatures—Ungoliant, Carcharoth, sundry Balrogs, Glaurungs, Maiars, and Periannath, the latter being, as it happens, Hobbits.
Such a barricade of grotesque and semi-pronounceable names is no small obstacle to a venturesome reader; but in fact the names are also a good part of the book's reward. Like the portmanteau words of "Jabberwocky" or the deeper and more violent conglomerates of Finnegans Wake, many of them sink into the mind, disintegrating the smooth and accepted conventions of everyday English to memorable effect. The dragon Smaug, the wicked and menacing Nazgûl, the Ents of Fangorn—such rich and mouthy names keep the mind busy tangling and untangling their phonemes. But when one has to keep Elendë (which is a name of Eldamar) distinct from Elendil the son of Amandil, and both distinct from Elendur the son of Isildur, while Elrond, Elros, Eluréd, and Elurín hover in the neighborhood, the effect is an irritating blur.
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