The Númenóreans love to name themselves after other people or Elves that they respect. They won’t take a name from someone who is living at the time because that could create misunderstandings and other such trouble.
- In Númenor and its followers: Gondor and Arnor, a king is given a new name upon taking the throne.
- In the Second Age, they named in Adûnaic predominately, with Quenya equals if they were high-class people. Their kings would have their royal names in both Quenya and Adûnaic, though later on, towards the end of Númenor, they would only name in Adûnaic. After the Fall of Númenor, they went back to naming their Kings in Quenya.
- In the Third Age their names could be in Sindarin, Exilic-Sindarin, or Adûnaic. They name kings in Quenya (34 PME).
- They do not have family names or nicknames.
- They rarely have more than one name.
- The children’s names are constructed to sound like their parents’ names. A girl’s name will have some sort of common sound or meaning with her mother’s, and a boy’s name will have some sort of common sound or meaning with his father’s. Also, siblings often have similar sounding or meaning names. For example: Denethor→Faramir→Elboron. Faramir and Boromir are brothers.
- Unlike the Elves, naming a child after a long-dead historical figure was not taboo; though they generally didn’t give someone the same name as someone who was living at the time to avoid confusion.
Where to go for Númenórean names
- Exilic Quenya Name List
- Adûnaic Name List
- Gondorian Sindarin Name List
- Names of Already Existing Characters
Source
- (PME) The Peoples of Middle-earth by Tolkien, The Appendix on Languages