Lord of the Rings Fanatics Plaza

I'm assuming everyone knows Frodo and Sam right?

*crickets*

Anyways, I bet not all of you know that in Tolkien's literary adaption of The Red Book of Westmarch, which became The Hobbit and LOTR, among other books, in his translation of Westron to English, he changed the names of the hobbits from Westron to names like Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin.

So Frodo Baggins is Maura Labingi. Samwise Gamgee is Banazîr Galbasi.

Do you agree with this editorial decision by Tolkien? Or would the name changes not have changed your impressions of the Hobbit? Or would you have preferred a hybrid? Where Maura is kept the same, but Banazîr's name was changed to Sam? Or would you have preferred that alternative names be used instead of Frodo and Sam, like Morris and Bane?

What are your thoughts?

Well if we have Maura and Banazîr, that implies that all the other names should have been correspondingly left in their original tongue as well. Whilst the etymology to Merry and Pippin and Sam is explained, I found Frodo a bit more opaque. And it wasn’t like Legolas was always referred to as Greenleaf, the “westronised” version - the Elf-names are preserved as is… I think?