Peregrin Took as Merry, was his cousin; another good friend was Frodo Baggins. 'Peregrin' means 'traveller in strange countries'. Pippin indeed saw much more of Middle-earth than most Hobbits: he journeyed with Frodo and the Fellowship of the Ring, and fought in the War of the Ring. Late in life he travelled again to the kingdoms of Rohan and Gondor. Pippin's hair colour is mentioned as "almost golden" in "The History of Middle-earth", vol. IX, "Sauron Defeated", through the eyes of Pippin Gamgee. In the later drafts of this same section Tolkien omitted this statement, leaving the reader to envisage Pippin's appearance.
Meriadoc Brandybuck Black Gate, while in the book he remained in Minas Tirith to heal from the wound he received when assisting in the killing of the Witch-king of Angmar and was instrumental in the romance between Faramir and Éowyn. In the prefaces and appendices to "The Lord of the Rings", Tolkien employed the conceit that he was the modern translator of a unique manuscript, the "Red Book of Westmarch", and that his stories of Middle-earth derived from that. In this guise of translator, he maintained that the character's real name was not "Meriadoc Brandybuck" but rather "Kalimac Brandagamba". This was said