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:
“There are names written in her immortal scroll at which Fame blushes!”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“If goodness were only a theory, it were a pity it should be lost to the world. There are a number of things, the idea of which is a clear gain to the mind. Let people, for instance, rail at friendship, genius, freedom, as long as they will—the very names of these despised qualities are better than anything else that could be substituted for them, and embalm even the most envenomed satire against them.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“All nationalisms are at heart deeply concerned with names: with the most immaterial and original human invention. Those who dismiss names as a detail have never been displaced; but the peoples on the peripheries are always being displaced. That is why they insist upon their continuity—their links with their dead and the unborn.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)