A Sindarin name of the Q. Nandor, sometimes also called Denwaith in association (or confusion) with their leader’s name Nan. Denweg (WJ/385). This name is a combination of dan “back again” and the lenited form of gwaith “people”, hence: “*people [who go] back again”.

Conceptual Development: In Silmarillion drafts from the 1930s, this people was first called only the “Green-elves” (SM/133). Later Tolkien indicate that their name in their own languages was Danyar >> Danas, coined from the name of their leader Dan (LR/175). In the writing of the period, their name was often anglicized as “Danians” (LR/194). In The Etymologies, Tolkien said the name was derived from the root ᴹ√(N)DAN “back, backwards” (Ety/DAN), much like their later Sindarin and Quenya names.

In Silmarillion revisions from the 1950s, Tolkien used the name Danathrim alongside the anglicanized form “Danians” (MR/169). In his Quendi and Eldar essay from 1959-60 he used the name Danwaith, but by this period the name “Danian” had disappeared and Tolkien most frequently referred to them by their Quenya name: the Nandor.

A Sindarin name for the Q. Nandor in early Silmarillion revisions from the 1950s-60s (MR/169).

See S. Danwaith for further discussion.

The name Danians used for themselves, derived from the name of their original leader Dan (LR/175, 215; Ety/DAN). It is apparently a combination of that name with an abstract-noun or collective-plural suffix -as.

See S. Danwaith for further discussion.