Anardil

Anardil

The birth-name of Tar-Aldarion

While Tar-Elendil ruled as the fourth King of Númenor, his Heir Meneldur had a son of his own. He named that child Anardil, 'Devoted to the Sun', perhaps because of the golden hair the boy had inherited from Almarian, his mother. He quickly grew to become a proud but generous youth, and became enamoured of sea-going and adventure.

As his experience and reputation as a mariner grew, he planted great forests to provide wood for ship-building, and from them he received his more famous name, Aldarion, probably meaning 'son of the trees'. Almost all records of his life refer to him has 'Aldarion' rather than 'Anardil', or (after he inherited the Kingship) as 'Tar-Aldarion'. There are a very few exceptions: his 'official' full name as King's Heir seems to have been 'Anardil Aldarion', while his grandfather Vëantur called him Anardilya, a familiar form of his birth-name.