when consulting the lord of the rings appendices at the back of rotk, or more specifically, when reading appendix f, i discovered a nice little store of information concerning the names of hobbits. for example, did you know that meriadoc brandybuck's true name is really kalimac brandagamba? - though he went by the shortened version of 'kali,' a westron word meaning jolly. or did you know that samwise's real name was banazîr, a name meaning simple or half-wise? i mean, really. a-maz-ing!
but, alas, our focus here today is not on the history of merry or sam's names, but rather one of a slightly more tookish slant.
the habit of inherited surnames had been adopted by the hobbits for centuries. most hobbit surnames had obvious meanings in the language of the time and were usually derived from endeared nicknames, the names of places or from the names of trees and plants (the latter example being especially popular in bree). most name meanings are easy enough to decipher, though the meaning and origin of some of the older names, such as tûk (anglicized as 'took') are long forgotten.
concerning first names, to daughters hobbits often gave the names of flowers or jewels and to sons (and true, the occasional daughter), nonsensical names which held little to no meaning in the common language.
in older families, particularly those of fallohide descent, like the tooks, it was customary to give high sounding first names to their children. most such names were drawn from legends of both hobbit and human origin. these names if repeated in the same family were also bestowed with numerical suffixes in keeping with the more elevated style of naming.