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The evolution of names
JRR Tolkien was a fastidious and perfectionist writer, and he took great pride and joy in the languages he made up for his imaginary world. Indeed, it is almost truer to say that the world of middle-earth was made FOR his languages, not the languages for his world. Because of this, whenever characters or places in his writing were named, they often had more than one name, and many names were edited, cut away, or completely changed as he continually reworked his writing. In this page, The Evolution of Names, we seek to simplify all the name changes evident in The History of Middle-earth books edited by Christopher Tolkien into simple flow-chart diagrams so you can easily see how Tolkien's thought process changed over time. Aragorn's Evolution of Names is particularly fascinating because it is so immensely complicated: Tolkien kept changing his mind about Aragorn, which just shows that making great characters takes a TON of work! We separated the diagrams between the three major works -- Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, & Silmarillion -- and between character names and place names. Please enjoy, and also bear in mind that everything's not going to be 100% accurate, because I am not a Tolkien expert (though I definitely wish I was!). If you have any thoughts about how to improve, change, or add to this, please don't hesitate to contact me on the Contact Form found under Creative Opportunities. :)
Silmarillion: Characters
The dark Lord
In The Book of Lost Tales Part One & Part Two, the supreme enemy of Elves and Men is named Melko instead of Melkor like he is in The Silmarillion. In addition, Feanor's name for him (Morgoth, the Great Enemy) that becomes his most commonly used name has not been invented, because Feanor himself did not exist at that time.
The Silver tree
In The Book of Lost Tales One and Two, the Silver Tree that is referred to in The Silmarillion as Telperion is named Silpion. This name was retained for a long time, as Christopher Tolkien explains in The Book of Lost Tales 1:
...Silpion was for long the name of the White Tree, Telperion did not appear till long after, and even then Silpion was retained and is mentioned in The Silmarillion (p. 38) as one of its names.