Your name in several scripts
Tengwar in two modes, and the Cirth the Dwarves cut for stone. Everything is computed in the browser — nothing you type leaves your device. And every sign shows its working: which letter produced it, what it is called, and where the mode reaches its limit.
Write a name
From name to signs
Sign by sign
Which letters decided each sign. A letter that comes later can still change the choice — the mode looks ahead.
Three examples
- Sophie
- Olivia
- Matthew
General use, the mode Tolkien used for English — the same convention as the name signs on this encyclopedia’s entries.
The signs and their letters
Measured from the mode itself, not compiled by hand: each letter was transcribed, and what came out as a single sign stands here. The names are Tolkien’s own, from the table in Appendix E.
- b · mbumbar
- c · k · q · x · kw · nk · ququessë
- d · ndando
- f · phformen
- g · ngungwë
- hhyarmen
- janca
- l · lllambë
- mmalta
- n · nnnúmen
- pparma
- rórë
- s · sssilmë
- ttinco
- vampa
- wvala
- yanna
- zessë
- chhwesta
- shharma
- ththúlë
- ghunquë
- whhwesta sindarinwa
The vowel signs
Vowels are not letters of their own here: they are marks set above a consonant. Appendix E says which way they lean — “in those such as Sindarin, in which most words ended in a consonant, it was placed above the following consonant”. General use follows that: type “so” and the o sits on the carrier, add a p and it moves onto the p.
- athree dots above
- eacute above
- ia dot above
- oright curl above
- uleft curl above
A long vowel does not get a mark of its own: it is set on the “long carrier”, which Appendix E describes as a form like an undotted j.
What this tool does not do
- It does not translate
- A name is written by its sound. Turning it into Sindarin or Quenya needs a meaning, and a meaning needs a source — that is a question for the entries, not for a script.
- No mode of Beleriand
- The inscription on the West-gate of Moria is written in it, and it is the mode people ask for most. Our transcriber cannot do it reliably — it renders m as vala and n as órë, which are w and r. We would rather not offer a mode than offer a wrong one. About the gate.
- Not the Ring-inscription
- It is Tolkien’s own calligraphy, in a mode of its own, and this encyclopedia does not reproduce his drawings. Typing its words here will get you a note, not a line of script.
- Runes: Angerthas Moria only
- The Cirth are the Dwarves’ script, and the values we use are the Moria column of the table — the one Tolkien wrote Balin’s tomb in. The older Angerthas reassigned several of the commonest letters; mixing the columns produces plausible, wrong runes. About Balin.
The scripts themselves
- Tengwar — the older of the two Eldarin writing systems, and the one meant to be written; 67 names in this register are set in it
- Cirth — cut for stone and wood; the 33 dwarf names of this register carry their runes
- Shire calendar — the other tool that shows its rule
Typeface: Alcarin Tengwar by Toshi Omagari (SIL OFL 1.1). Transcription engine: tengwarjs by Kris Kowal (MIT). The rune shapes follow a comparison table by Axuan (CC BY-SA 4.0) — a downloaded sheet carries these notices with it.