Maybe that's why Tolkien wrote a ton of books while most of us get stuck in the character creation screen of Baldur's Gate 3 choosing a name for 7 hours.
this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2025
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In a world where a guy named Big Balls has had control over federal budget allocations, I can accept this.
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It's kinda funny with anime and manga. They use Japanese names for a bunch of stuff like special martial arts techniques or special moves. Not knowing Japanese, the names sound cool and mysterious.
Learning the actual translations, Treebeard is pretty par for the course.
Like from Naruto, Sasuke uses the Copy Wheel Eye (sharingan), Hinyata uses the White Eye (byakugon), and Naruto's big move is Spiral Sphere (rasengan). Copy Wheel Eye's upgraded version is called Kalidoscope Copy Wheel Eye.
They aren't horrible names, but they feel less cool.
Though it would be funny if Saitama has special moves that are just other languages saying "normal punch" or "serious punch". "Hip bump with moderate vigor" or something.
Edit: fixed spelling of byakugon
In MMORPGs the Archer class usually has a skill called "Aimed Shot".
(Joke incoming: That’s a stronger version of the skill "Unaimed Shot" where you just miss)
No. he just translated it into treebeard for localization for English speakers. educate yourself.
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Sure... but Tolkien could tell you Treebeard's name in hall a dozen languages he'd made up for his setting (or for fun, before the setting was a thing), including full etymologies.
Including Treebeard’s actual name in his own language. Treebeard is almost a joke name meant to show how primitive the humans are who called him that.
Overt bad guy: Sauron
Secret bad guy: Saurumon
I don't follow Digimon lore
While I made the same association when first reading the books, I'll point out that the name Saruman is one the humans gave him. His Quenya name, Curumo, has little to do with Sauron, nor with the latter's original name Mairon before he revealed his allegiance to Melkor and the elves dubbed him Sauron (Quenya) and Gorthaur (Sindarin).
There is a connection between them, but it isn't by name. They were both originally Maiar of Aulë, both ambitious and cunning, both desiring order. But where Sauron thought siding with Melkor would get him the means to impose his noble order, Saruman stuck with the Valar and was eventually sent to protect the newly awakened elves from Melkor.
Still, that shared ambition for order eventually made allies of them, while their respective cunning saw each scheming against the other. If Gandalf and those meddling mortals hadn't gotten in the way, the final stage of the War of the Ring would have been a struggle between these two former colleagues. Depending on where the Ring ended up, that might have been an interesting struggle, the two most cunning Maiar going head to head, but I think it's for the best we never found out how that would have gone.
Now tell me about a very specific part on a commercial airliner.
I don't know what you're referencing and planes aren't really my specialty, but personally, I'm fascinated by the whole concept of the Instrument Landing System.
Unfortunately, I don't think I have the technical understanding to confidently explain how it works, but it's using the modulation of different radio frequencies and the ways they cancel out to indicate to pilots whether they're correctly facing and approaching the runway. If the plane isn't in the right approach path, certain side frequencies will come out stronger and can be used to determine the exact angle you're off.
It's friggin' fascinating.
Anyway, were you referring to a specific part or just seeing if I can also nerd out about some other random topic?
Check out @airplanefactswithmax on the social medias. He's an airplane mechanic that always starts talking about airplanes, and it always devolves into a way too in depth lesson in lotr. Seems right up your alley!
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The um signifies the hesitation
I don't know if Tolkien's notes support this, but I always assumed that Treebeard's Entish name was something completely unpronounceable for anyone who isn't an ent, and "Treebeard" was a nickname that he picked for himself. Maybe because he finds it funny that other species think he looks like a tree. (I'm sure that ents look clearly different from trees to other ents.)
Edit: he says so himself.
Hrum, now, well, I am an Ent, or that's what they call me. Yes, Ent is the word. The Ent, I am, you might say, in your manner of speaking. Fangorn is my name according to some, Treebeard others make it. Treebeard will do.
Didn't he also say that his actual Entish name would take too long to pronounce for regular mortals to bother with?
Right, wouldn't an Entish Introduction (great band name) take a month of common time?
Fangorn is my name according to some
"Fangorn" means "Treebeard."
In Sindarin (the most common Elvish language), not Entish.
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It keeps blowing my mind when I learn that other languages haven't obfuscated the meanings of names behind two thousand years of linguistic divergence.
Your name almost certainly means something basic too, you just don't remember what it is.
Yep. Some common names:
Steve ← Steven ← Stephanus ← στέφανος = crown (or wealth)
Linda ← -linde = tender, soft
James ← Iacomus ← Iacobus ← Ἰάκωβος ← Ἰακώβ ← יַעֲקֹב = heel, footprint / follow, watch, observe
Karen ← Catherine ← Αἰκατερίνη ← Ἑκάτη = one who works from far away (referring to a goddess)
Karen- one who complains to management
And "Tiffany" may sound like a very 20th-century American name, but it actually dates back to the early 13th century and is based on a Greek word that's even older. The "Tiffany Problem" is a really interesting phenomenon in the anthropological/perceptual space based on that.
Tiffany ← Tifinie ← Θεοφάνεια = "God's arrival/appearance"
It's also more closely related to the name "Natalie" than you might think, at least etymologically.
Natalie ←Natalia ←natale domini = "birth of the Lord" (Latin)
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So many get this backwards.
The languages (there are multiple, including historical languages that explain the transition into the modern languages) came first - by about 40 years.
He did not invent languages for his world. He invented a world to explain how his languages would come to exist.
Makes sense. The biggest strength of robust worldbuilding isn't showing it all to your audience, it's hinting at small pieces of it that shows a connection between them and hints at something deeper. Having what feels like a detailed history makes the world feel real, because you can see shadows of it in the foreground. If you actually dig into all of it explicitly in your story that just makes it feel shallow, because you're showing the whole iceberg.
It's why the mystery of the clone wars and Anakin's apprenticeship and betrayal of Obi-wan were intriguing in the original Star Wars trilogy, but end up just being some action movies once it's all fleshed out on screen. Depth stops being depth if you bring it all up to the surface.
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The man understood what language and names are used for, to say the least.
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