Quote:
Originally Posted by Formendacil
Perhaps, given that naming is a creative act, and given that Tolkien denies that evil can create, there is a point being made here? Elves, the paragons of creativity, are expected to come up with new and original names, whereas Orks/Evil generally are not.
Also, even more speculatively, naming something is part of what we do to individualise people or things, part of what we do to give them unique worth. It strikes me as typical of Melkor and his ilk to not, for those very reasons, name anything. And, on that note, "Gothmog" is Sindarin, not Black Speech, so it's almost certainly a name given by either the Elves or the Dúnedain--unless Sauron was deliberately evoking the Balrog when he or the Witch-king gave Gothmog II his name.
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Men seem to like to reuse names too in JRRT's work; both Aragon and Denethor are technically the second members of their lines to bear those names, though to my knowedge no one in the stories seems to call them the Second (as a bonus Denethor's father, Ecthelion is the second Ecthelion in the steward line as well). We're used to kings bearing the same names for many generations in our own real world history, so it doesn't really jump out at one as much as the Gothmog naming does. Now that I think of it, wasnt there also a Minas Tirith in the first age as well, wasn't that the name of the fortress on Tol Sirion?