Quote:
Originally Posted by Knight of Gondor
Mine are like the Drúedain. Reclusive and unfriendly.
Notably, Tolkien may have based some ideas of hobbits on the citizens of Kentucky:
Tolkien's Ol' Kentucky Hole?
Hobbits in Kentucky
I went to internet phone books and found no entries for Baggins, Tooks or Bracegirdles, no Brandybucks (there's a Meriadoc Brandybuck living in Florida, though!), but several Burrows and Grubbs and a few Proudfoots. |
I went to a lecture on this topic at Birmingham 2005. The guy who gave it (can't remember his name but he was truly impressive, a huge American bloke with a beard and big belly and who played a They Might Be Giants song on his keyboard - totally eccentric) reckoned there wasn't anything in the idea in particular as a lot of the names crop up elsewhere in similar numbers too.
I went to school with some Bilbos and I work with a Proudfoot. Took is a fairly common name in the UK too.