The Children of Húrin

Content Warning: The source material features depictions of violence, unintended incest, and of death by suicide during a period of grief.

In fantasy worldbuilding, names are important for immersing the reader into the reality of that world. In telling stories of Middle-earth, J. R. R. Tolkien often takes care to specify exactly where the action is taking place and who the major players are. Because names are so prominent in defining the characters’ identities, it is doubly significant that a number of characters assume different names and titles in The Children of Húrin, where names function as an important motif.

Túrin is given many alternate names across the novel, including Adanedhel, Agarwaen, Gorthol, Mormegil, Neithan, Thurin, and, finally, Turambar. Niënor is renamed Níniel when she settles in Brethil. Even Morgoth’s name is his second one, following his original name of Melkor. In this regard, names are used to deceive as much as they are used to inform others of one’s identity. Túrin in particular adopts aliases to distance himself from his real identity, which he believes will decrease the odds that Morgoth’s curse will affect him; names are thus an attempt to exercise agency in the conflict of Fate Versus Free Will. Níniel’s name also distances her from her old identity, though unintentionally.

Tolkien deploys these names as part of his literary strategy; where he typically refers to Túrin and Niënor by their original names even as they adopt new ones, this is not the case when they become Turambar and Níniel. From the moment they assume these names, Tolkien almost exclusively refers to them by their assumed identities, implying that they have fully transformed into new characters. However, Gwindor reminds Túrin that the curse that plagues his family goes deeper than his name. The fact that Tolkien reverts to their original names once Glaurung reveals their identities to Níniel stresses The Inescapability of the Past. It is likewise telling that many of the aliases the characters adopt closely resemble their given names; Finduilas calls Túrin “Thurin” while Níniel and Niënor not only sound similar but have similar meanings (both are related to grief). This shows that despite the characters’ attempts to conceal themselves, their true natures and fates re-emerge in the end.