Legolas and the Balrog

[blantyr]

Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin

Even in the late Glorfindel essay, Tolkien didn't say that "Elves never re-used names," but that "repetition of so striking a name [as Glorfindel] would not be cradible. No other major character in the Elvish legends... has a name borne by another person of importance." Legolas and Galdor of Gondolin weren't really major characters in the legends, not by Glorfindel/Ecthelion standards.

I'd also note that elven names are descriptive. If one pulls out the right elvish to english dictionary, they mean something. This left me scrambling a while back, naming my elven character in a Middle Earth game. This experience suggests to me at least that there have been lots more elves in the history of Middle Earth than good elven names. While JRRT might have started out thinking he'd never repeat a name, I can quite understand that he might not have stuck with it.