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I'm a huge LOTR fan and I love Arwen, both the character and the name (obviously, look at my username). In a vacuum, I wouldn't hesitate to use this name on a child, but my "obsession" with LOTR is well-known and I wouldn't want my kid to get flak for it. I'm always happy to hear of little Arwens, though.

As a fan of the Lord of the Rings, Arwen is immediately associated with it in my mind. It's a beautiful name, but I would be hesitant to use it because it is so heavily associated with LotR (and I say that even as a fan.) I don't think it's unusable for someone who's not a fan, but you should be aware that most people will automatically link it to LotR.

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There is Anwen, which is similar and doesn't have the association. But then I think Anwen runs the risk of being mistaken for an Arwen.

I love Arwen! I also love Anwen. I don't think it's really that usable if you don't like LOTR... People would assume that's what you names the person after. But Anwen would be usable.

Not too made up or associated with the books. LOTR is such a part of pop culture that I think the new generation would be likely to assume it was an old Welsh name.

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Besides, I worked with a woman named Arwen who was born in the late 1970s. Everyone thought her name was awesome. I don't even remember finding out it was invented when she told us where it was from. I realized that later when I actually read LOTR. So in my experience it's quite normal and usable =)

This message was edited 12/19/2011, 11:55 AM

I would assume you were a fan. It might not be so much of a problem if the movies hadn't happened -- Tolkien's books have always been known among fantasy fans the well-read, but they've become far more popular since the films have been released. In the books, Arwen appeared for a couple pages out of a thousand and was a relatively obscure character.

I would assume the parents of an Arwen (or Eowyn or Aragorn or Gandalf) were huge LOTR fans, just as I assumed, correctly, that the parents of a little Anakin I met were Star Wars fanatics.

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I don't know any Arwens, but I do know an Eowyn. Her parents are so into LOTR that they speak to each other in Elvish and don elaborate costumes to go to conventions. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that--I'm a Trekker from way back who has been known to go to conventions in pointed ears and call my son "sa-fu," Vulcan for "son"--but it bothers me when fannish devotion spills over into the real-life naming of children. They could grow up to have very different interests and tastes, and I think it would be embarrassing to have an invented name obviously taken from someone else's obsession. Sorry for the tangent. I understand this wouldn't apply to you.

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Bottom line, I wouldn't use one of these names unless I was a big, big fan, and I wanted the whole world to know it for the rest of my child's life. I love Welsh names, and there are many non-LOTR names with a similar feel and sound that could be used without the LOTR burden.

Yes, people will assume you are a fan. People will assume your kid is a fan, too. I once knew an Aragorn, and he had people ask him about the books all the time . It was annoying for him, because he wasn't as gaga for the books as his parents were. That's why I wouldn't use an LotR name in real life.

I think it's pretty and I definitely think it's useable and not too made-up sounding (not like Frodo or Bilbo or something!)

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What about Anwen? It's a Welsh name which is similar to Arwen but doesn't have the LOTR association.

I would associate it with the books. I like the sound and the look of it, but not the character.
It has been used as a name in Wales before the book came out in 1954, but only a tiny number of times - according to birth records, there have been a grand total of five people given the name Arwen in Wales between 1837 and 1954, and I think they were probably variants of / typos for Arwyn (boy's name meaning 'very fair') or Arwel (meaning unknown).

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There's always Anwen or Awen, if you want something similar with no Tolkien associations.

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I don't think it's too LOTR. It was a name before that, wasn't it? Anyhow, it's a lovely name in my opinion.