Quote:
Originally Posted by Inziladun
If all of them had staves when the disembarked, why was Gandalf's possession of one noteworthy? And if only Gandalf brought his from the Undying Lands, perhaps that was symbolic of the fact that he was, ultimately, the greatest among them, as discerned by Círdan.
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Also, I'm not sure about in the canon itself, but isn't the name Gandalf meant to contain '
gandr', the Old Norse word for staff?
EDIT: After some research I found
this, which shows that the name Gandalf does mean "Wand/Staff Elf", though, again, I'm not sure how well this translates in-canon. But it does seem to me that Gandalf was noted for having a staff, which may suggest that the others didn't.
On the other hand, Gandalf was his Mannish name, and so "Staff Elf" may just show that because Men thought he was an Elf, they found it strange for him have (or need) a staff. Since they didn't know of his magic, I'd say they probably assumed it was only a walking aid, which I can't imagine Elves using, it would be a enough of a defining characteristic to make it into his name.