[Huinesoron]

Taking a few things in reverse...

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Well, I think that Numenoreans would have avoided certain names as just TOO big (Finrod, Elwe, Olwe, Finwe, Fingolfin: Turgon was an exception, as more than just a direct ancestor of the Kings but the Elf who explicitly agreed to his daughter marrying a Man, starting the whole thing. He was practically family). Villains were right out: Maeglin, Salgant, Saeros, Eol (How many Mordreds or Iagos have you met?) Aredhel means "noble Elf," so not good for a human woman. Actually, T gives us so few names of Numenorean women that we can't say names like Idril and Elenwe weren't used; we know that Finduilas was.

Tolkien Gateway claims that "Ingold" (ie, Finrod's Mother-name) was pretty popular among Numenoreans; I'm not sure what that claim is based on, though.

Without checking, I feel like it was mostly the post-king Gondorians who reused names (ie, the Stewards and Dol Amroth); there's an Earendil and a Turambar in the list of kings of Gondor, but the rest look pretty unfamiliar. The lines of Numenor and Arnor are equally non-First-Age. So I feel like there was an element of harking back to the Glory Days (even if they weren't Gondorian Glory Days) involved in the whole thing.

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

On the one hand, T once wrote "No...major character in the Elvish legends as reported in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings has a name borne by another Elvish person of importance" (This was his reason for concluding Glorfindel of Gondolin and of Rivendell were one and the same). This does make sense, since even if you named your little Elfling after some dead Elvish hero, that dead Elf might come back.

On the other hand, T appears to have overlooked Galdor of Gondolin and Galdor of the Havens - unless either the latter Galdor was "of no importance," or if the original Galdor escaped the sack, made it to the Mouths of Sirion, and decided to hang out with Cirdan for the next 7000 years. But in that case, surely his buddy-reunion with Glorfindel would have been noted!

There's also Legolas, scout of Gondolin. And Gildor Inglorion, whose name seems to indicate that he was the son of Inglor - but 'Inglor' was a name either of Finrod or Finarfin, and no family tree has ever given either of them a son named Gildor. So apparently there's two Inglors, too (though Gildor also claims to be of 'the golden house of Finrod', so... who knows!).

Of course, the external answer is that Tolkien frequently cannibalised the earlier Tales when writing LotR and its associated texts. That's why he had such trouble with Glorfindel - originally he was just a convenient name, but when he set to cleaning up the Gondolin tale for theoretical publication, he had to find a way to reconcile the two.

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Lots of names were recycled by Numenorian Men, which used to belong to Men and Elves alike (as Nerwen's recent riddle proved). Do Elves recycle their names though? I'm interested to see if there's an example.

Well... Finwe. Who named his sons Finwe, Finwe, and Finwe, then stuck some new bits on the front when he figured out their personalities. And then Finwe Jr I, now called Curufinwe, named one of his sons Curufinwe.

And then, after Finwe and Finwe Jr I were both dead, Finwe Jr II and Finwe Jr III both stuck their dad's name on the beginning of their own names, which were already their dad's name with something stuck on the beginning, because... somehow doing that made them more kingly?

Basically, if Mordred had just renamed himself Arthurevilarthur, he would've had the throne no problem.

hS