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  • Numenorian Surnames

    From Scott55@starscepter@outlook.com to rec.arts.books.tolkien on Sun Dec 6 23:14:23 2020
    From Newsgroup: rec.arts.books.tolkien

    Is there a source of Numenorian surnames? It strikes me as incredible that the Prince of Dol Amroth doesn't seem to have a surname. Many of the nobles in the LotR series don't have them. Thanks for any help!
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  • From Thomas Koenig@tkoenig@netcologne.de to rec.arts.books.tolkien on Mon Dec 7 10:03:11 2020
    From Newsgroup: rec.arts.books.tolkien

    Scott55 <starscepter@outlook.com> schrieb:

    Is there a source of Numenorian surnames? It strikes me as
    incredible that the Prince of Dol Amroth doesn't seem to have
    a surname. Many of the nobles in the LotR series don't have
    them. Thanks for any help!

    I think they mostly use patronymics. Aragorn, son of Arathorn, ...
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  • From Julian Bradfield@jcb@inf.ed.ac.uk to rec.arts.books.tolkien on Mon Dec 7 14:08:17 2020
    From Newsgroup: rec.arts.books.tolkien

    On 2020-12-07, Scott55 <starscepter@outlook.com> wrote:
    Is there a source of Numenorian surnames? It strikes me as incredible that the Prince of Dol Amroth doesn't seem to have a surname. Many of the nobles in the LotR series don't have them. Thanks for any help!

    Why would they have surnames? Surnames are mostly a relatively recent
    invention (excepting China and Rome and a few others), and none of the societies on which the Numenoreans and Gondorians were based had
    surnames. As for nobility, even today, royalty and nobility don't use surnames, though they have them.
    (The Heisei Emperor of Japan was a marine biologist - on the papers he published while Emperor, he appears as just "Akihito".)

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