Man behind the Mythology

[Son of Númenor]

It seems, sadly, that I have been misinformed. I was operating under the impression that Mr. Samson Gamgee was a neighbor of J.R.R. Tolkien's in Sarehole. In fact, Tolkien was unaware of Mr. Gamgee at the time that The Lord of the Rings was published. It was only after the book was published that Mr. Gamgee, a local Birmingham man and notable inventor as you said Bêth, became known to Tolkien.

Gamgee is quite a different matter. In my early days gamgee was the word we used for what is/was more generally called 'cotton-wool'.....Recently in the English Place Names Society volumes on Gloucestershire (vol. iii) I came across forms that could conceivably explain the curious Gamgee as a variant of the not uncommon surname Gamage (Gammage, Gammidge). This name is ultimately derived from a surname de Gamaches....but early records of the forms of this name in England, as Gamages, de Gamagis, de Gemegis, might well provide a variant Gamagi > Gamgee.

Your reference to Samson Gamgee is thus very interesting. Since he is mentioned in a book on Birmingham Jewry, I wonder if this family was also Jewish. In which case the origin of the name might be quite different. Not that a name of French or Francized form is impossible for a Jewish surname, especially if it is one long established in England. We now associate Jewish names largely with German, and with a colloquial Yiddish that is predominantly German in origin.* But the lingua franca of mediaeval Jewry was (I was told by Cecil Roth, a friend of mine) of French or mixed French-Provencal character. (Letters, 324)

Samwise Gamgee's name was not a derivation of Samson Gamgee's. Therefore my initial question was flawed and, since Bêth provided the factually accurate answer, I yield the floor.

Apologies,
Númenor