There is a possibility that a sense was originally intended, since Tolkien usually has something to say when he names somebody.
Tom Bombadil as a name first turns up in the early '30s, in a poem quoted in HME6 (p.115).
Quote:
(Said I)
Ho! Tom Bombadil
Whither are you going
With John Pompador
Down the river rowing?'
(Said he)
'Through Long Congleby
Stoke Canonicorum,
Past King's Singleton
To Bumby Cocalorum
|
There is no river anywhere that has all of these place-names represented along it, so another purpose is being served. It's useful to analyse the onomastics of this second verse.
Long Congleby is not a real place-name. Its second element is from Old Norse
-by ('enclosure'). There is a town in Cheshire called Congleton, which means 'Farmstead at the round-topped hill'. 'Long' is a vaunting later addition where present in an English place-name, but there is no Long Congleton in England either. 'Long farmstead by the round-topped hill'. Possibly 'long' is intended to be oxymoronic when paired with
congel.
Stoke Canonicorum is a real place: Stoke Canon at the confluence of the Exe and Culm in Devon.
Stoke - 'Outlying farmstead'.
Canonicorum (Lat. 'of the Canons') was added later to denote ownership.
King's Singleton - I could find two Singletons in England: it means 'Farmstead with shingled roof' (Lancashire) or 'Farmstead near a burnt clearing' (West Sussex). 'King's' would have been added later to denote ownership, if any such place as King's Singleton existed.
Bumby Cocalorum is obviously not a real place-name. The first element is probably
bumbay - 'a quagmire from stagnating water, dung etc' modified to look like a place-name ending in
-by. Cocalorum survives in the obsolete playground game of High Cockalorum, which was abolished from schools in the 1950s for being too dangerous. It means 'playful and arbitrary', but cf Dutch
cockeloeren - 'to crow'. In other words 'Crow on one's own dunghill'.
Tolkien is ridiculing the number of English place-names that have been altered from the Norman period onwards so that their lords and masters could show off. It's also probably significant that all of the place-names contain elements meaning 'farmstead', which could indicate that Tolkien thought they were putting on airs by talking about kings and canons. Therefore the personal names are going to tie in with that overall theme.
Pompadour is unattested before 1750 and refers directly to the Marquise de Pompadour (1721-64), the mistress of Louis XV. The word usually is used to describe the fashions of her era, but could also indicate courtly frou-frou ridiculousness at a stretch. Tolkien is highly likely to have investigated the origins of the word
pompadour, which would explain his idiosyncratic spelling. In France, a Pompadour would be an inhabitant of Pompadour in Corrèze, one of the oldest manors in the department. It was common in English to attach a common first name to a descriptor like this to refer to a type of person. The etymology of this place-name is hard to pin down, but is probably related to
pompe - 'pomp', 'magnificence', from Greek
pompe - 'solemn procession, display'. Tolkien could also be referring obliquely to the fact that the Marquise contributed funds for the first two volumes of Diderot and D'Alembert's encyclopædia. It's probably worth noting that Tolkien's friend W.H. Lewis was an historian of
ancien régime France.
For Bombadil, then, we have a few options, most of them related to
bombast. Unusually for Tolkien it looks as though we have a real live French origin.
Bombance: Variant of
bobance - 'boastfulness, ostentation'. 'Of uncertain origin.' There are three words likely to get JRRT's attention for a start.
Bombaceous: Latin
bombyx 'silk'. 'Of or pertaining to plants of the genus Bombax, or the Silk-cotton family'. I threw this one in because of the reference to the Cotton family.
Bombace (1)The down of the cotton plant, (2) Cotton fibre dressed for stuffing or padding garments (3)Padding, stuffing cf
bombast.
Bombard (sense 4): a deep-toned musical instrument of the bassoon family or sense 5: bombard-man - a servant who carried out liquor to customers; a pot-boy.
I'm inclined towards
bombance, because the theme of the poem is the boastful origins of place-names and it fits nicely with 'Pompador'. I do like the pot-boy idea too, though.