#jirt & son: gives us basically no taliska knowledge

[an-eldritch-peredhel]

Dior Aludae

So @yellow-feathered-faerie sent me a message about my headcanons on Dior's names back in December, (which I now know was for a GIFT FIC READ IT HERE AND FALL IN LOVE LIKE I DID!!!) and I've been thinking about it and felt like I typed so much out that it would be a waste not to share it! I didn't bother to edit it much, so you're getting the raw infodump experience, fair warning.

For reference, these are the headcanons and meanings I'm working off of in regards to everyone's mother and father names. Dior's specifically:

Aludae | Dior | Eluchíl - Wholesome Shadow | Successor | Elu’s Heir

Aludae is his fathername- I am Very Weak for the trope of naming your kid in your partner’s language, so I also choose to believe (with 0 basis because canon is dead uwu) that Dior is at least vaguely Taliska- although since Taliska was influenced way back by proto-Sindarin it can still maintain that original connection.

I got into Beren’s reasoning behind the name a little bit in the other post, but basically by the time Dior was born Daeron had essentially awkwardly hovered around for 7+ months, fixed and significantly improved his relationship with Luthien, and Beren wanted (per Beoran culture) his kid to have at least one “godparent” and since none of his people were available, by the time he needed to ask he’d decided his brother-in-law was pretty alright actually and worthy to have a kid named after him. (This becomes even more justified the moment Daeron is asked because he basically bursts into tears and proceeds to do his best to earn "uncle/godfather of the century" from then on.)

The “Alu” was because (as evidenced by the Long line of Bs in the house of Beor) naming your kids similarly to you and your ancestors was important to the culture, especially to the nobles. Beren, since his whole family was dead and he really didn’t feel like or want to be noble, didn’t want his son named after him, but he learned about Luthien and Daeron’s El-names and he really did want Dior to have a connection to Doriath but also he really wasn’t going to name his son directly after the elven-king who tried to kill him so…

(Retroactively thinking that had Beren known Emeldir was alive before upon strange paths, he might have named Dior Emedae instead, which can be generously translated as "pictured shadow" (cool), or FAR more accurately as "mother-shadow" which makes me react in 3 ways: 1.) aww Beren naming his kid after his mom in meaning and sound, 2.) aww Beren naming his kid because he reminds him of Luthien, and 3.) LA;SKDJFJAAAAAA DIOR SHADOWS HIS MOTHER BY CHANGING HIS SPECIES AND FATE AND IS PERMANENTLY ALTERED BY LOVE DEATH AND THE SILMARIL I AM FROTHING AT THE MOUTH)(So there's that)

(I do think Thingol kind of forgets/mishears the announcement and the format his name is originally presented in isn’t standard for Sindar (it’s Aludae Dior, so he assumed Aludae was the mother-name) so the first of two times he properly meets his grandson he calls him Eludae. It’s very awkward) (Although star-shadow is a GREAT name)

The above and the idea of Dior as his mother-name is also part of my headcanon that your more common use-name in Sindar culture is dictated by who is more important to the people you’re around at the time. So if he was hanging out with Edain he would go by Aludae, and in Doriath he goes by Dior. (My watsonian explanation for why we know him as Dior Eluchíl and don't hear 'Aludae')

The only meaning for Dior we get is “successor” and that’s from way back in Tolkien's writing, so I feel confident in tweaking it a little for cultural context. I see the meaning as less of “next in line for high position” and more “inheritor (abstract)”. Like in the sense that we inherit not just stuff from our parents, but also parts of them- their appearances, their personalities, their habits, and even less concrete stuff like their connections, reputation, successes and failures. So for Luthien to name her son that, in Taliska especially, is actually really touching.

It’s kind of an indirect way of saying “You have so little family left, and one day you will lose us too, but we will give you everything we can to make sure that you have the best life possible.” And also really really heartbreaking because as I’m writing this I’m realizing that while the silmaril is a literal possession, it also represents a lot that falls into that abstract category, and while obviously the second kinslaying wasn’t any of their faults, Dior’s inheritance of Nauglamir and Thingol’s bad decisions and a Doriath without Melian’s protection and the political results of the Quest and in the end the weight of the Oath all ultimately outweigh any blessing they managed to give him. I know I’ve given all his kids really sad prophetic mother-names too but at least they were INTENTIONAL.

On a happier note, nicknames! Daeron calls him Dae-pîn, as previously stated, because it’s adorable. Luthien calls him Fileg until he’s old enough that he gets huffy about “little” bird, and then to tease him. She switches between a couple different birds (she did this with Daeron too, but they traded back and forth, which is how he started calling her Filegel), including generic Aew (bird/songbird), Aelilron (bird-of-paradise, lit. dancing bird, which she saves and busts out whenever he gets too vain through his teenage years), Filegelui (starling (bird), she only rarely uses this when she’s especially emotional, sometimes with Daeron too, and it ends up as Elwing’s mother-name years later.) Eventually she “settles” on Heledir (king-fisher, mostly per his personality: fairly noble but still humble and a fan of the wild. The English is lost a little in Sindarin, because it literally means fish-watcher, but the reasoning still holds and fits his personality.)

Beren calls him Thindrostir somewhat sarcastically whenever he goes traipsing about in the woods looking for adventure and comes back dirty (with or without his uncle), and Thin-ikĭ (diminutive, lit. little-grey, also fits bc Dior has a streak of silver in his hair) more affectionately. Thindrostir means badger, and so does Felagund, because if he’d survived Finrod would’ve been godfather #2 no questions asked, regardless of how far away Nargothrond was. It definitely wasn’t official name material, but since Daeron got a nickname for Dior and elves can un-die, it was kinda unspoken between the adults that Finrod should get one too. Luthien had at least met him before, and she was his cousin once removed, so it wasn’t one sided either. (I have FEELINGS about Finrod's relationship to them, and Beren especially)

Eluchíl is very much a name he takes on after he goes to Doriath- I have a bunch of headcanons about the process of becoming anything close to a king- prince first, actually- in the eyes of the people he had to go through but I think that the first step was that he joined the march-wardens as a young adult, which is where he first met Nimloth and got the nickname/title as a joke from her. Over time it spread, and as he gained the respect of his fellow wardens and the various villages scattered away from Menegroth, it definitely became less sarcastic. After Thingol died he started actively using it because, well, any help against the (frankly overall elitist and racist) opinions of the people of Menegroth proper was useful.

Also! Adding this bit on retroactively too, but his kids switch between calling him ada and aede (ae-dae) (dad/daddy in Sindarin and Taliska, respectively). I got the Taliska from Old English faeder (father) because frankly I think it's adorable.