Tolkien's hobbits have some of the most comfortable names in fantasy: Bilbo, Frodo and Samwise, Baggins, Took and Gamgee. They follow clear patterns, and Tolkien explained several of them himself. This hobbit name generator builds new names in those patterns: plain Shire names, grand old Took names, Buckland names like Meriadoc's, and the flower and jewel names hobbits gave their daughters.
How hobbit names work
- Male names are often short and end in -o: Bilbo, Frodo, Drogo, Otho, Lotho. They sound homely and a bit old-fashioned.
- Female names are often flowers or jewels. In the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien notes that hobbit girls were commonly given such names: Belladonna, Lobelia, Primula, Rose, Pearl.
- Family names are plain English-sounding words, often about the land or the home: Baggins (from Bag End), Proudfoot, Burrows, Hornblower, Brandybuck.
All the names in this generator are new. None belong to a hobbit in Tolkien's books, so your character won't turn up in a family tree.
Tooks and Brandybucks
Two great families break the pattern, and the generator's Family choice follows them:
- The Tooks were the Shire's grandest and most adventurous family, and they gave their sons grand, old-sounding names: Bandobras, Fortinbras, Isengrim, Ferumbras. The Took option makes a new Took with a name like those.
- The Brandybucks of Buckland, across the Brandywine river, had names that sound different from the rest of the Shire: Meriadoc, Gorbadoc, Marmadoc, Saradoc, Rorimac. The Brandybuck option makes a new Brandybuck in that -doc and -mac style.
A Took name says your hobbit comes from an old family with a taste for adventure; a Buckland name says they're from the edge of the Shire, by the river and the Old Forest.
Naming your own hobbit
- Match the family to the character. A cautious, respectable hobbit has a plain Shire name; a Took is expected to wander off.
- Use a nickname. Hobbits shorten names all the time: Peregrin is Pippin, Meriadoc is Merry, Samwise is Sam.
- Give the surname a place. Many Shire family names come from where the family lived: a hill, a burrow, a bank by the river.
For D&D's halflings, which began as a stand-in for hobbits, see the Halfling Name Generator. For more Middle-earth, try the LOTR Wizard, LOTR Orc and Elf generators.