В Приложении VI к ВК, в главе "О переводе" говорится о том, как Толкиен интерпритировал Алую Книгу на английский и там есть следующее замечание:
though I have usually anglicized them (имена) by altering their endings, since in Hobbit-names "a" was a masculine ending, and "o" and "e" were feminine. Получается, что имя Фродо звучит как "Фрода"?
И ещё. Дальше написано:
The names of the Bucklanders were different from those of the rest of the Shire. ... They had a style that we should perhaps feel vaguely to be Celtic elements in England, I have sometimes imitated the latter in my translation. ... Meriadoc was chosen to fit the fact that this character's shortened name. Kali, meant in the Westron 'jolly, gay', though it was actually an abbreviation of the now unmeaning Buckland name Kalimac. То есть, "Мериадок" - это переведённое на англ. имя Калимак? Или это переведённое на Вестрон имя Калимак? Но тогда с какого языка?
И последнее.
But Sam and his father Ham were really called Ban and Ran. These were shortenings of Banazîr and Ranugad, originally nicknames, meaning 'half-wise, simple' and 'stay-at-home', but being words that had fallen out of colloquial use they remained as traditional names in certain families. I have therefore tried to preserve these features by using Samwise and Hamfast, modernizations of ancient English samwís and hámfæst which corresponded closely in meaning. Тот же вопрос, что и про Мерри. Сэм и Хэм - это просто подходящие заменители в англ. настоящих имён (Бан и Ран)? Выходит, все имена, встречающиеся в ВК, кроме эльфийских и имён дунадан (напр. Арагорн) звучат "на самом деле" не так, как мы привыкли?