#my cool elf boi sure hope nothing bad happens to him *sweats nervously*

[wrath-ruin-reddawn]

Name Meanings in The Rings of Power: Arondir

I am a gremlin with no impulse control. People said, "Go full nerd!" and so I will! Our lovely boy Arondir is up next.

Naturally, I think it makes sense for us to first look at his name's meaning in his native language.

The first part of his name, "aron," is not a preexisting word in Sindarin. It's most likely derived from arod "noble", although other possibilities are aran "king" and aearon "sea". Given his background, I think that "noble" is the most likely-- Arondir's not royalty, so "king" would have been a bit of an ostentatious choice on his parents' part, and although there were Sindar who loved the sea, Arondir seems to display their more characteristic appreciation for woodlands and growing things.

The second part of his name, dîr, means "man" as in the gender, not the race! (Although, in some of his earlier writings, Tolkien seems to have translated dir as "hero" and not just "man".)

So, when combined, Arondir means "noble man", which is very appropriate for him!

Also, I do find it very intriguing that Arondir fits in well with the names Amdir and Arothir-- Amdir being a king of Lorien and Arothir being another name that Tolkien was considering for Orodreth of the house of Finarfin. I'm not sure if this was an intentional choice, but I like the fact that Arondir's name sounds similar to theirs. As we're seeing, despite his low status, Arondir has excellent leadership potential, and I hope that is explored further in future seasons!

Now, because Arondir is an elf, it's not likely that his name has any additional meanings in real-world languages. It's a long story, but basically Tolkien acted as though Lord of the Rings was a translation of a real book written in Westron, the most common human language in Middle Earth. As such, he made several translation choices to make Westron names more understandable to English readers-- so, for example, many of the Rohirric names are derived from Old English because Rohirric derives from an older version of Westron. Elvish names, therefore, are unchanged because they're totally unrelated to Westron. So Arondir's analysis ends here.

More name meaning analyses: Bronwyn | Halbrand | Rowan | Theo | Tredwill | Waldreg