Good roleplaying names

Middle Earth is essentially middle-aged. No, I'm not saying that it's lost its youth, I'm saying that it's old, as in The Middle Ages, the Dark Ages, the time before the Renaissance, Medieval times and we should go by what is a good name for those times (which can be a far cry from what is an appropriate name nowdays). Many people have two names, a "given" name (their "common" name) and a "byname" (typically used to distinguish between people with similar given names -- to make certain who it was you were talking about).

Youth in modern times are strangely spoiled -- they're virtually all called by their real names!? In the early part of the 20th century, "gangsters" had names like Joe the Fish, Crybaby Joe, Lucky Luciano, Butterfingers Moran, Bugsy, and the famous Scarface. These were their real "names", what everyone who knew them called them. Old FBI informant reports are littered with annotations, calling out who a given person actually "is" so that they could be prosecuted. Such names, although not part of the "country club" life at the time, weren't unusual. In fact, that's how most people throughout history have been named (and those have been their "real" names). In a time where ID cards are unknown, where the only way to prove that you are who you say you are is by getting people who know who you are to testify on your behalf (or by some trial or feat), the idea of a "real" name doesn't make much sense. You are who you are and your "nickname" might as well be your real name. If that's the name that everyone knows you by, then that's the name that everyone knows you by and it's just as "real" as any other name that you use.

Throughout history, until relatively recent times, people were known by their distinguishing characteristics, by what they did, by what they were like. I think the most famous LotR example is the man known as Strider -- to a number of people that was his actual name. Mithrandir is another striking example, Gandalf's Elven name which literally meant Grey Pilgrim. It sounds exotic because it's in a different language, but it's really an utterly common and prosaic name which features the salient personal traits which distinguish him. It's sort of like Starbucks and baristas -- the word barista sounds exotic but it literally means bartender and to an Italian it's an utterly ordinary and prosaic word, like our English bartenders.

A person's given name was their common name, usually given at birth, although it might be replaced during their life by a nickname, or a name gained through some sort of rite of passage into adulthood (which back in those times usually came somewhere around 12-16). In LotRO, as in the Middle Ages, people who got around a lot and were known to a number of people usually were known by a different given name to each group of people such as Strider/Aragorn, etc.

Bynames

A byname tended to stick more often. It may have been an inherited family name, but was more typically used to distinguish between multiple people with the same given name. More than the given name, it tended to either reflect who you are now or what you have become (or once were). It tended to be either so informal that it didn't really need to be used all the time, or so formal that it shouldn't really be used all the time. In any case, it wasn't as common as the common (or given) name.

Occupational

Occupational bynames were rather common, although at times they might actually be a person's new given name, their new nickname. Examples include Smith, Flaschner, Cobeler.

Familial

Bynames could also be patronymic (which literally means father name) or (much more rarely) matronymic or some other familial group byname. During the Middle Ages in most of Europe, this wasn't a common practice (until the Middle Ages were starting to end) but relatively modern-day English practices influenced J. R. R. Tolkien's use of familial bynames (causing the Ringwraiths to search for a Baggins, instead of a Bilbo). Familial names are quite common in Lord of the Rings.

Locative

Bynames often referenced a person's location. John of the meadow (by the pond) or John Meadows as we might now say.

Descriptive

More to come

We all know that some people just plain stink. Sure, there's a cure for Axillary Hyperhidrosis *now*, but back then people just suffered with it. I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that a family who all suffered from a congenital genetic disease that made them stinkier than other people could have the family name "Stink".

I mean, all of us either had a nickname that we didn't like as youth or we knew someone who had a nickname that they didn't like. This gentleman obviously acquired the epithet Armpitsweat and now carries it proudly. That's kind of an American thing to do, to take a demeaning name that you really don't like and start carrying it as a badge of honor, but I guess a German fellow could do the same thing.

In the Middle Earth ethos and naming system, I really don't think Armpitsweat Stink is a non-lore name, I think (give an appropriate backstory) that it could fit right into the world. After all, Axillary Hyperhidrosis (excessively stinky armpit sweat) is an entirely real and valid medical condition that could definitely cause a person (or indeed an entire family) to be called by their most noticeable (and memorable) quality.

Honestly, that's not the strangest real life nickname I've seen.

Cootieman is not an unusual name for a person who (at one point in his life) was afflicted with cooties (bed lice and other such creatures). Now, cooties (lice) were quite common back in those times -- when you went to an inn you'd commonly crawl into a large common bed simply because beds were expensive and if you didn't want to sleep on the dirt then you'd be sharing a bed with someone. Cootieman must have been afflicted with an unusually large number of cooties, or perhaps he still does have a large number about his person, but like the old epithet Crybaby Joe or Fat Tony, such a name really isn't out of keeping with the Lord of the Rings world.