Meriadoc Brandybuck to be an actual phonetic transcription of the name in Tolkien's invented language of Westron, which Tolkien said he transliterated to English as follows: The nickname "Merry" represents his actual nickname "Kali" which meant "handsome, happy", and "Meriadoc" serves as a plausible name from which a nickname meaning "happy" could be derived. Alternately, "The Middle-Earth Encyclopedia" writes that Meriadoc means "joyful" or "cheerful," while Merry means "having high spirits." Théoden called Merry "Holdwine", and the Hobbit was thus known as such in the records of Rohan. It most probably derives from the Old English words "hold" and "wine", respectively meaning
Meriadoc Brandybuck Took (as Sam said at the Field of Cormallen, Merry was three inches taller than he ought to have been). In the Brandybuck family tree as it appeared in the First Edition, the name of Merry's wife was not recorded. In a revision made in 1966, the name of Estella Bolger, sister of Fredegar, was added in this role; the revision was initially made in some editions but not in others, as described in the "Note of the Text" by Douglas Anderson which is prefaced to recent editions. At the same time, Tolkien added Estella to the Took family tree,