Is it illegal to use these names?

Writers' Corner
1

I have been working on a story for exactly several months and I wanted to know if it is illegal to use names like : [name_m]Elrond[/name_m], [name_f]Arwen[/name_f], Eldarion, [name_m]Samwise[/name_m], Eomer, [name_m]Theoden[/name_m], [name_m]Reuel[/name_m] ( Tolkien’s middle name) and [name_f]Rosamund[/name_f]

PS: I’m a big fan of [name_m]Tolkien[/name_m] and even one of my character’s last name is [name_m]Tolkien[/name_m].
Is there a problem if I use Tolkien’s last name and these names for my story? [name_m]Just[/name_m] the name, not the character. I don’t want to get hate by Tolkien’s fan cause I adore him.

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i doubt it’s illegal, but if you’re planning on publishing this, i would avoid it for sure. using names so tied to another author would be strange

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I think [name_f]Arwen[/name_f] and [name_f]Rosamund[/name_f] would be fine, but the others I would probably avoid using. I don’t think it’s illegal but would definitely be weird since they are very obviously tied to [name_m]Tolkien[/name_m], besides the two I mentioned which are pretty widely used names.

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Echoing others. I don’t think it’s illegal (not sure how it could be since people name their kids those) but if you’re using all of these names and the surname [name_m]Tolkien[/name_m] in the same story, it reads more like a fanfic than an original fic, and that could seriously impact publishing.

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It’s actually both. It’s a new story for one of the movies and so it’s both fanfic and original story I guess.
I just wanted to honor Tolkien’s characters and his words cause I do respect him.
Most of the names stands as my character’s middle names …

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You might want to be careful using all those names, but if you only use one or two it might not be so much of a problem. Also, you want to be careful that your characters aren’t clones of existing characters whose names you’re using.

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