Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, written originally in English, has since been translated, with varying degrees of success, into dozens of other languages. Tolkien, an expert in Germanic philology, scrutinized those that were under preparation during his lifetime, and had comments that reflect both the translation process and his work. To aid translators, and because he was unhappy with some choices made by early translators such as Åke Ohlmarks, Tolkien wrote his Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings in 1967 (released publicly in 1975 in A Tolkien Compass, and in full in 2005, in The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion).

Because The Lord of the Rings purports to be a translation of the Red Book of Westmarch, with the English language in the original purporting to represent the Westron of the original, translators need to imitate the complex interplay between English and non-English (Elvish) nomenclature in the book. An additional difficulty is the presence of proper names in Old English (names of the Rohirrim) and Old Norse ("external" names of Dwarves). Their relation to English (within the history of English, and of the Germanic languages more generally, respectively) is intended to reflect the relation of the purported "original" names to Westron.

The first translations of The Lord of the Rings to be prepared were those in Dutch (1956-7, Max Schuchart) and Swedish (1959–60, Åke Ohlmarks). Both took considerable liberties with their material, apparent already from the rendition of the title, In de Ban van de Ring "Under the Spell of the Ring" and Härskarringen "The Ruler Ring", respectively. Most later translations, beginning with the Polish Władca Pierścieni in 1961, render the title in literal translations. Further non-literal title translations after the Polish translation are the Japanese 指輪物語　(ゆびわものがたり) "Legend of the Ring", Finnish Taru Sormusten Herrasta "Legend of the Lord of the Rings", the first Norwegian translation Krigen om ringen "The War of the Ring", and West Frisian, Master fan Alle Ringen "Master of All Rings".

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