Westron to have been "Kalimac Brandagamba", short "Kali" (meaning jolly, merry). 'Meriadoc', short 'Merry', is designed to maintain the reference to merriness contained in the original name. Likewise Peregrin Took's actual name was "Razanur Tûc", short "Razar" (name of a small apple). 'Peregrin', short 'Pippin' contained both the actual meaning of the full name (traveller, stranger) and the reference to an apple. Sam Gamgee (shortened from Samwise Gammidgy) was actually named "Ban Galpsi", short for "Banazîr Galbasi". The ending of the 'true' Hobbit name Bilbo was also changed: in Westron it was "Bilba", but Tolkien changed this to "-o" because "-a"
Meriadoc Brandybuck "faithful" and "friend". Tolkien used Old English to represent Rohirric, another of his fictional languages, so "Holdwine", like "Meriadoc Brandybuck", is not what the character was actually called. Tolkien does not give Merry's real Rohirric name. It has been asserted that the name "Meriadoc" could be in itself an allusion to the British nobleman Conan Meriadoc, legendary founder of the House of Rohan in Brittany, since the character Meriadoc is closely associated with Tolkien's kingdom of Rohan. But Tolkien, in response to a reader's inquiry, denied that the Breton name inspired the name of his fictional kingdom. Meriadoc Brandybuck Meriadoc