Translating My Personal Name

Geoff Black #611

Greetings! I hope this is not an inappropriate topic, as I am new here and not fully familiar with community conventions, yet….

I am wanting to render my personal name, Geoffrey, in Quenya. Given that the Germanic meaning of my name is usually “God’s peace” or sometimes “divine peace,” from available information here, I’m inclined toward Eruquillë, a direct compound similar to “Gottfried” in German. Perhaps Eruoquillë, placing “God” in the genitive, would be more accurate? Or is there a better solution to my quest?

Any opinions offered would be greatly appreciated. Á na márië!

Paul Strack #612

quilde is Early Quenya, and is a bit iffy. It also means “peace” in the sense of “peace and quiet”. I would suggest raine “peace” instead, so perhaps Eruraine

Elaran #613

Since we also have RAY as "net" and such, I would rather avoid rainë as well. I think, Erusérë would be fine.

Paul Strack #614

While I think sére would also be fine, I see no reason to avoid raine. In addition to RAY “net”, we also have the root RAY “smile”, to which raine “peace” might be related.

Tolkien also deliberately replaced sére with raine in the Quenya translation of Gloria in Exlcesis Deo. I believe that sére wasn’t completely rejected, it just didn’t have the connotation Tolkien wanted.

eldamo.org

That’s also why suggested raine over sére: I think raine is closer in sense to Germanic frid-

Elaran #616

I should have clarified. My point with "net" was exactly that there are two identical roots, which would have been problematic for Tolkien, considering that he even disliked having identical derivations (whose roots were not identical but similar). Depending on his final decision on what RAY should mean, rainë could instead mean "lace", or raiwë could mean "peace", in theory. Since we have a valid alternative, my "overly cautious" approach may be justifiable. In any case, it is up to the requester.