Role-playing and Onomastics: J.R.R. Tolkien's influence on the naming of fictional characters in role-playing games

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2.7, University of Cologne (Englisches Seminar), course: Onomastics, language: English, abstract: Fantasy-role-playing games resemble a part of culture dedicated to the play and shortwhile identification with fictional characters. First appearing in the 1960s, role-playing games secured a small spot in a society crowded by fans of Fantasy-, SciFi- or other fictional literature. One of the major works of fantasy-literature is 'The Lord Of The Rings', 'The Hobbit' or 'The Silmarillion' of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973). Tolkien, as a philologist of early medieval languages, created not only a range of new (and adapted) races to people his universe of Middle Earth, he also created for each race a specific language, with own grammar, vocabulary and: names. He spent great afford in creating so distinct languages that no one could misunderstand the words of the Elves as words by Dwarves, for example. This linguistic effort is supposed to play an important role in the reception of his works, and regarded to play a certain role in the influence Tolkien's works have today on other works of fantastic- and non-fantastic literature. Role-playing games resemble a part of creative and active literature, where the players tell and create stories while imaginatively acting in these worlds. For taking part in such an interactive story, one has to create an alter ego, an avatar, or just: a character. These characters are the means by which players interact in the fictional worlds, and as they are most of the time a part of their self-expression and self-conception, they are every time a sum of all the influences on the players mind and knowledge about culture and all its aspects. This paper will investigate on the influence of Tolkien's works on one particular part of role-playing games: the creation of names for those characters used to interact in fictional worlds. The assumption is that, as Tolkien is commonly regarded as a significant influence on literature and fantasy in special, his impact on the naming of fictional characters must be somehow traceable.