firsthousepacifist:

koalamb:

magpiedragon:

psychopompious:

omnomnomwisenom:

Remember yourself reading all things Tolkien for the first time? Surely, all the distant “magical” lands, Elves and dragons took your breath away (or failed to do so). But there always were these parts where you could not restrain yourself from laughing out loud because of the very way the words you were reading sound.

Those names!

In case English is not your mother tongue, chances are that you’ve had a feeling (once, at the very least) Tolkien was purposedly trolling you and all of your fellow Finnish/German/Italian/(choose for yourself) speakers. In case English is your native language, you’ve probably had this feeling as well.

Here goes a list being compiled with the help of people mentioned at the end of the post. If you wish to contribute, please don’t hesitate and send me a note (or two, for the sake of double-checking); I’ll update this very post.

Here we go.

BARAN

• Russian. Literally ‘ram’ (male sheep).

BELEG

• German. Literally ‘receipt’.

BEREG

• Russian. Literally ‘shore’.

BEREN

• German. When said out loud, sounds like the
  German word for ‘berries’ (Beeren).

CELEBORN

• Teleporno. Self-explanative. In every language.
  

CELEBRIMBOR

• Czech. ‘Brambor‘ means ‘potato‘.
  

CELEGORM (Turcafinwe)

• Italian.  ‘Turco’ means ‘Turkish’. 
• Russian. ‘Turka’ = ‘cezve’.
• Spanish. ‘Turca’ equals ‘penis’.
  

CURUFIN (Curvo)

• Italian. ‘Curvo’ means ‘bent’.
• Polish. ‘Curvo’ means ‘(you) whore’.
• Romanian. ‘Curufin’ means ‘the smooth a$$’.
• Russian. ‘Curva’ goes as a not-that-wide-spread synonym for ‘whore’, ‘prostitute’.
  

ELENDIL

• German. Sounds weird (but also
  poetic) because ‘Elend’ means ‘great misery’.

FINGOLFIN (Nolofinwe)

• Finnish. Nolo means ‘embarrassed’ or ‘awkward’.
• Latin. Nolo stands for ‘I
  don’t want’.

GROIN

• English. In human anatomy, the groin is the junctional area between the abdomen and the thigh on either side of the pubic bone. [Wiki]
  

ILMEN

• Finnish. ‘Ilma’ = ‘air’.
  

MAEDHROS (Nelyafinwe)

• Finnish. ‘Nelya’ means ‘four’ (and not third).
  

MAGLOR (Kanafinwe)

• Finnish. Kana means ‘chicken’.

MANDOS

• Russian. The first four-five letters have a stunning resemblance with the vulgar word for women’s genitalia.

MANWE

• German. Mann-Weh is pretty much literally (though not really used) ‘man pain’.

MENELTARMA

• Polish. ‘Menel’ is colloquial for ‘drunken hobo’.

SAURON (Annatar)

• Finnish. Anna is a common
  girl’s name and in finnish language -tar suffix is sometimes added to a
  title to make a feminine variation of it.

SILMARILLI

• Finnish. ‘Silmä’ means ‘eye’.

UINEN

• Finnish. ‘Uida’ is ‘to swim’.

VORONWE

• Russian. ‘Voron’ stands for ‘raven’.

CONTRIBUTORS

@ancamnarvienn

@centawen

@clouds-of-wings

@doegred-main

@frillyfacefins

@grahamology

@macalaures

@mutisija

@omnomnomwisenom

@snartha

# silver potato

# the close fraternal relationship between penis finwe and whore finwe

# thank you contributors for bringing this joy to my life

If you bother going back to Hobbit for a minute DALE can get transcribed as DAL out of necessity, which is kinda oldie for “distance” or “far away” in Polish.

The City of Far Away under The Lonely Mountain kinda makes it feel even more like you are reading something for five-year-olds.

Gonna add some more on the Finnish-sounding words, because why not. I highly doubt some of these are the supposed inspiration, but I still find them rather amusing.  

Ainu( r) – ainut/ainoa in Finnish, meaning ‘the only one’ 
Annatar – is already listed, but I thought I’d elaborate a little. Anna is a common Finnish girls’ name, and derives from the word antaa, ‘to give’. However, the form ‘anna’ is an imperative, and actually means ‘give me’. Which is rather fitting in this context.
Ancalimë / Ancalimon:  most certainly not related, but the finnish word for ‘duck’ is ankka, and I always found this rather amusing.
Calacirya/Kalacirya: close to the pronunciation of kalakirja, which would technically mean ‘fish book’ or ‘fishing book’. 
Calavénë/Kalavéntë: kala means fish, vene means boat. In the early drafts, there was very much a boat shape involved.  
Calma/Calmatéma- : kalma means death 
Cuiviénen: In the early drafts, the name of the elven haven was Koivië-néni, which sounds suspiciously close to Koivuniemi, a common Finnish place name meaning ‘birch cove’. 
Dúnedain/Dúnadan: this is honestly just crack theory at this point, but the word is very similar to the old stadi slang term ‘duunata’ (derives from Swedish ‘done’). Duunari is a manual laborer.  
Halla: ‘frost’ (halla literally means frost), but Tolkien chose it to mean tall/long in quenya.  
Harma: harmaa is ‘grey’ in Finnish.  
Helcar: another complete crack theory, but helkkari is an old slang curse that one might use in the same way as ‘bloody’ in ‘bloody cold’ etc. One of the most popular contexts for the word is to exclaim how incredibly cold it is outside, on helkkarin kylmä.  
Huor: huora, ‘a whore’. I rather doubt this is what Tolkien was inspired by lmao.  
Maia( r): Maija is another common Finnish name, but also an old slang term for the police.  
Melkor: another one I’m very doubtful about, but melko means ‘quite’. 
Náin: literal translations would be either ‘I marry’ or ‘I fuck’. Pick your favorite. 
Ori: my sweet summer child, your name actually means stallion (or a beefy handsome man, oldish slang term) 
Saeros: very close to the pronunciation of ‘sick’ and/or ‘twisted’. 
Timpinen / Tinfang Warble: Timpinen is just a legit Finnish surname. 
Vala( r): an oath (to swear an oath: vannoa vala), but also meaning ‘to mold/to create’ when in verb form. (to cast iron: valaa rautaa, to create the world, valaa maailma, archaic)  
Valarauka: see above. Raukka means ‘poor’ or ‘wretched’ in Finnish.  
Voronwë: voro means ‘thief’  

And my favorite, which is the Quenya numbers, as there’s a whole lot of interesting little easter eggs: 

Third (ordinal): nelya (neljä = four) 
Fifth (ordinal): lempëa (lempeä = gentle) 
Seven (cardinal): otso (otso = old word for ‘bear’, but also similar to Spanish and Italian 8)
twenty-three: leminkainen (Lemminkäinen = one of the heroes in Kalevala)

Don’t even get me started on Tolkien’s names and how they sound in Russian.

Ibun (the dwarf) – “fucker”. Not really an insult, just… idk, someone who fucks.
Durin. Duren’ means “stupid man”.
Gondolin. Gondon is a slang word for a condom.
A particulary common word her (lord, master, ruler) literally means “dick”.
Ar-Adûnakhôr (a king of Numenor) sounds close to “Ar-I’m-going-to-fuck-off”.
Angamando. The same as Mandos. “Mando” means prison in Quenya; and “manda” is… yes, a vulgar word for women’s genitalia.
Erebor. This one is not obscene, tho. Perebor means “too much, overflow”.

I don’t even notice it anymore, but my non-Tolkien friends lose their shit every time I mention somebody with a particulary funny name. Makes serious conversations harder.

Húrin also sounds a bit too similar to “Huren”, German word for “whores”. And to “urine”.