"These names I have retained, though I have usually anglicized them by altering their endings, since in Hobbit-names a was a masculine ending, and o and e were feminine." (Appendix F)
With the great influence of Latin and its succeeding languages, the modern reader would perceive a name ending on -a to be feminine (such as Carl[o] vs. Carla). That is why Tolkien decided to anglicize some names such as Frodo, which incidentally would have been fróda in Old English. Some of those names were apperently modernized after already having been translated, such as Frodo, and some were anglicized 'as they were' from Westron.
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09-28-2003, 09:57 PM
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