Names
It is not clear from which of Tolkien's invented languages the names Alatar and Pallando are derived. A possible translation from Quenya for Alatar is after-comer and could be a reference to his being selected as the second Wizard, after Curunír (Saruman). Alatar could also mean "Noble, great one". Pallando can be translated from Quenya as far one from palan, meaning far or distant.
An alternate set of names in Quenya for both wizards is given in the 1968 The Peoples of Middle-earth as Morinehtar ("Darkness-slayer") and Rómestámo ("East-helper"). Like most names in Tolkien's works, these names are significant. Here, Rómestámo coming from the Quenya word rómen, meaning uprising, sunrise, east incorporates not only his relation to the East of Middle-earth, but also his mission there to encourage uprising and rebellion against Sauron. Tolkien does not make it clear which alternative name belongs to which wizard, however.
In Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, the Blue Wizards are instead named as Naurandir and Sûlrandir - Games Workshop, which created the game, does not have rights to any books other than the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, but was allowed to invent their own material to cover such areas.
Read more about this topic: Blue Wizards
Famous quotes containing the word names:
“All the names of good and evil are parables: they do not declare, but only hint. Whoever among you seeks knowledge of them is a fool!”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“Far from being antecedent principles that animate the process, law, language, truth are but abstract names for its results.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)