A little of both. If you read this post about elvish naming customs you’ll see that most of the Finweans (that is, the Noldorin royal family) have about three names. One Quenya name from their father, one Quenya name from their mother, and then one of those names that was “Sindarized” when they returned to Middle Earth. Each of the nicknames that you listed above is a shortened version of one of these canonical names (“Nelyo” is, I think, Maedhros, who’s father name is Nelyafinwe; “Tyelko” is Celegorm, who’s mother name is Tyelkormo – I’m not sure who Curvo and Finno are supposed to be, though.) So, in the sense that these nicknames come from canonical names, then yes they’re canonical.
However, Tolkien didn’t use nicknames/shortened names for the elves in his writing, ever. Given the extreme importance the elves put on their names (especially the Noldor), there’s no indication that they would have used shortened nicknames at all. So the use of these shortened nicknames is purely fanon.
(Also, a reminder for anyone writing Finwean fanfiction. Keep in mind that the Quenya names really weren’t used much after the Noldor returned to Middle Earth. In The Silmarillion we only see the Sindarized names used, and with Quenya banned in Beleriand and the (seriously, I cannot emphasize this enough) real importance the Noldor placed on names and transitioning their own names to Sindarin, it doesn’t seem too likely that the Quenya names would have been used while in exile. So “Nelyafinwe”, “Tyelkormo” and the other Quenya names would have existed primarily in Valinor.)
SOURCES: The Silmarillion, The Histories of Middle Earth vol. 12 (“The Shibboleth of Feanor”)
I think it might be worth clarifying that, while Tolkien never used the Feanorian nicknames in the narrative, Christopher did list them, in the Shibboleth? (As far as I recall, Kurvo—not Curvo—is Curufin, but I can’t remember a Finno, either.)
I can also see why some people might use these names even in post-Valinor fics: it is not unreasonable to assume that the Feanorians would diss Thingol and his rules in between slaying his kin, at least in private. (I probably wouldn’t, though: to me, they have the sound of public school nicknames straight out of Wodehouse—Bingo, etc—so I have a hard time taking them seriously.)
…The Exiles took the Sindarin tongue in all their daily uses, and the High Speech of the West was spoken only by the lords of the Noldor among themselves. (The Silmarillion, ‘Of the Noldor in Beleriand’ p 151)
Honestly, this brings me back about 15 years, with the canon police and ‘superior canon’ vs the rest of Tolkien’s writings. And if this person is going to argue that the Silm is the superior canon, at least get it right.
So, yes, Quenya was still spoken in private. And I agree about the Fëanorians – why would they shun a language that’s been condemned because it’s associated with them? (I always thought that was a plothole, anyway – it would have been simpler to just say that the Exiles adopted the language of the land and Quenya fell into disuse, much as Latin did.) Plus, as I’m sure you already know, Turgon’s household spoke Quenya openly (the Shibboleth p 348).
The Silm doesn’t have much in the way of dialogue, and even in the parts that occur in Valinor, we see the Sindarin names, which is ridiculous – they wouldn’t even know Sindarin at that point. So, to argue that the Quenya names shouldn’t be used in fic because they weren’t used in narrative doesn’t make sense. Tolkien at first conceived of Sindarin as ‘Noldorin’, the everyday language of the Noldor, and Quenya as the High Speech, used only in lore. That’s why everything is in Sindarin.
Moreover, the dialogue we have is limited to formal situations, in which nicknames would never be used. Obviously, the nicknames were used by family – otherwise, they wouldn’t exist. So, it seems perfectly appropriate to use them in fanfic.
THANK YOU! Excellent response. Now I can delete the nascent screed on my saved drafts. Or maybe save it to expand on the distinction between bona fide scholarship, i.e., what might be presented at a Tolkien conference or in a journal versus the transformative nature of fan fiction in which the texts serve as mythology and/or (unreliable) history (not stone cold Fact™) and are thus highly subject to interpretation.
Second bold set is mine–
This is why I don’t always track with the idea that the Noldor were being persecuted by the language ban; A) they’re the aggressive invaders, and B) it’s contextually obvious that Quenya is intended to be the Latin of Middle Earth– (It’s like… in-text cultural divisions aside, from a purely authorial perspective, any speech in elven languages comes across to non-elves as being mystical and elevated, but the elves themselves need a variant of language that is EVEN WAY MORE mystical and elevated, which is reserved for items of ancient history and quasi-magical stuff.) Actually, for me, thinking of the Noldor as being analogous to the Romans makes a lot of sense, and allows a lot of neat parallels to be drawn (without painting a picture of anyone being either totally benign or totally oppressive).
MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive 