Editing Samwise Gamgee (section)

=== Name ===

{{see also|Pseudotranslation in The Lord of the Rings}}

[[File:Blue plaque Sampson Gamgee.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Sam's surname is from [[Sampson Gamgee]], a Birmingham doctor who invented a surgical dressing; as a child, Tolkien knew the word "gamgee" as a name for cotton wool.{{sfn|Lobdell|1975|p=166 "Gamgee"}}<ref group=T name="Letter 257"/>]]

Tolkien states in his "[[Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings|Guide to the Names in ''The Lord of the Rings'']]" for [[Translating The Lord of the Rings|translators of the book]] that he took the name "Gamgee" from a colloquial word in [[Birmingham, England|Birmingham]] for [[cotton wool]]. This came from [[Gamgee Tissue]], a surgical dressing invented by the 19th-century Birmingham surgeon [[Sampson Gamgee]].{{sfn|Lobdell|1975|p=166 "Gamgee"}}<ref name="Letter 257" group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=letter 257 to Christopher Bretherton, 16 July 1964}}</ref> He claimed to have been genuinely surprised when, in March 1956, he received a letter from one Sam Gamgee, who had heard that his name was in ''The Lord of the Rings'' but had not read the book. Tolkien replied politely<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=letter 184 to Sam Gamgee, 18 March 1956}}</ref> and sent Gamgee a signed copy of all three volumes of the book. He recorded in his journal "For some time I lived in fear of receiving a letter signed 'S. Gollum'. That would have been more difficult to deal with."<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|pp=224–225}}</ref>{{efn|Tolkien later traced the origin of the English surname Gamgee to the [[Norman French]] surname "de Gamaches".<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=letter 324 to Graham Tayar, 4-5 June 1971}}</ref>}}

[[Pseudotranslation in The Lord of the Rings|In the fiction, Tolkien pretends that Sam's name is translated]] from the [[Westron]] ''Banazîr Galbasi''. The forename comes from elements meaning "halfwise" or "simple", exactly matching the [[Old English]] ''Samwís''. ''Galbasi'' comes from the name of the village ''{{Visible anchor|Galabas}}''. This uses the elements ''galab-'', meaning "game", and ''bas-'', roughly matching the [[English placenames|English placename]] endings "-wich" or "-wick" (meaning in Old English a dwelling or specialised farm{{sfn|Mills|1993|p=358}}). In [[Pseudotranslation in The Lord of the Rings|his frame story role as "translator"]] of the ''[[Red Book of Westmarch]]'', Tolkien devised a strict English translation, ''Samwís Gamwich'', which develops into ''Samwise Gammidgy'' and eventually comes to ''Samwise Gamgee'' in modern English.<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1955|loc=Appendix F, II "On Translation"}}</ref> 

<!--The "Guide to the Names in ''The Lord of the Rings''" also mentions that the surname of Sam's girlfriend, Rosie Cotton, is from an English placename ("cot" meaning cottage, and "tūn" meaning village in [[Old English]]), so that the heard connection with [[cotton]] fabric is of "no importance" for translations.{{sfn|Lobdell|1975|p=166 "Cotton"}} -->Tolkien states in a letter <!--to [[Naomi Mitchison]]--> that "Since Sam was close friends of the family of Cotton (another village-name), I was led astray into the Hobbit-like joke of spelling Gamwichy [as] Gamgee, though I do not think that in actual Hobbit-dialect the joke really arose", i.e. [[Tolkien's puns|he was punning]] on the connected meanings in English of the Gamgee and Cotton family names, "cotton wool" and "cotton [fabric]".<ref name="Letter 144" group=T>{{harvnb|Carpenter|2023|loc=letter 144 to [[Naomi Mitchison]], 25 April 1954}}</ref>