"Amon Amarth"?

Aeltherfif

Aeltherfif

New Metal Member
Aug 16, 2006
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I was wondering.. where does this name comes from.. i mean, i've read the song lyrics "amon amarth" but it doesn't really explain.. i've read the biography and it doesn't at all.. moreover i've studied enough of tolkien's writings to know that amon amarth, in (gray) elvish, means unlucky mountain (a-marth is the negation of marth, "luck", and amon means mountain) which is in fact sauron's mountain.. and yet i know that most of tolkien's ideas are taken from norse/german mythology (just take a look at the dwarven names, at tyr's hand -> beren's hand) so in the end why has the band chosen this name?
i firstly thought to make a search on the forum but then i realized that putting "amon amarth" as a keyword would have been nearly useless ^^'
 
Amon Amarth does only exist in tolkien's books, it's not a norse name. There are lots of threads about that topic, just too lazy to search^^
 
I think I've read in an Interview, that the image of the Mountain Of Doom and the battle described in the song Amon Amarth appealed to them, and so they chose it as band-name ... but that actually they (or at least Johan) don't like to be connected with Lord of the Rings in any way.
 
I remember from their old site in someone's profile they discussed why they chose the name. I think it was Ollie but I'm not sure. Basically they just thought it sounded cool. I remember seeing their favorite books and at least a few of them listed Tolkien's works. But other than a name I think it's pretty apparent that they weren't directly inspired or influenced by Tolkien.


The reason I heard about AA when I did was I am a huge Tolkien geek and was trying to find bands with Tolkien influence. So I started typing in random words and stuff in whatever file sharing program was popular back then to see what I would come up with. Lo and behold someone was sharing 1 AA song, "Without Fear".
 
From Metaleater.com (http://www.metaleater.com/interviews-amonamarth09222004.php):

I have to ask this - how did you come up with the name AMON AMARTH and what exactly does it mean?

(Laughs) That must be the F.A.Q. of AMON AMARTH (laughs). It's taken from Tolkien actually, but not actually "The Lord Of The Rings" books. It's taken from the book called "World Of The Rings" where the world is described. I think it's some kind of Elfish for "Mount Doom" really. That's what it means. The reason we took it was Ted was reading the book and he thought it was a cool name, cool meaning and it sounded cool, and yeah - we sort of agreed. It definitely suited more than SCUM anyways, for the musical direction that we were taking.

It's a very original name. I had to ask (laughs).

(Laughs) Well, of course.
 
IMHO, one more advantage in using name like that is that its initial letter is A, so the band's name is always placed at the beginning of different lists in on-line stores, announcements, for instance. This name is easy to remember.
And it makes people to search here and there about the meaning.
 
Metalhed said:
From Metaleater.com (http://www.metaleater.com/interviews-amonamarth09222004.php):

I have to ask this - how did you come up with the name AMON AMARTH and what exactly does it mean?

(Laughs) That must be the F.A.Q. of AMON AMARTH (laughs). It's taken from Tolkien actually, but not actually "The Lord Of The Rings" books. It's taken from the book called "World Of The Rings" where the world is described. I think it's some kind of Elfish for "Mount Doom" really. That's what it means. The reason we took it was Ted was reading the book and he thought it was a cool name, cool meaning and it sounded cool, and yeah - we sort of agreed. It definitely suited more than SCUM anyways, for the musical direction that we were taking.

It's a very original name. I had to ask (laughs).

(Laughs) Well, of course.
Click to expand...


in fact 'amon amarth' is Mount doom as the human of minas tirith (or minas ithil) called the mountain even before the war of the ring began. When sauron returned to mordor after the loss of the Ring in the last war against him on the fields before the Mountain the people named the mountain Amon Amarth. In the normal language which almost everyone in Middle earth can speak (its called 'westron' in the dutch version.. dont know what the original name is.. well it doesnt matter anyway.. forget this) you can translate it as Mount Doom. That Amon Amarth is named by the people of gondor you can see in the other names of Gondor or in countries which were of Gondor in early years. (such as Amon Sûl, Amon Hen etc.).. yeah very right.. Amon stands voor Mount(ain). This must be more than enough information i think.. i dont think a new question about the mountain is needed.

- by the way: this sort of information can be found in the Appendices of LOTR.
 
'Amon Amarth' is Elvish. Though that doesn't necessarily discount the fact that the mountain was named by Men. Sindarin Elvish was the common form of Elvish spoken by Men. And it was a custom for Kings to take an Elvish name. (Aragorn was crowned 'Tar-Elessar') The same also extended to place names. Almost anything that Men named that wasn't on their ancient island of Nûmenor was named in Sindarin.

Their own language, Adûnaic, is very similar to Semitic languages that we would recognize today. However it was very incomplete and a translatable version of "Amon Amarth' or 'Mount Doom' cannot be ascertained.

/edit: 'Urud' in the speech of Men is 'mountain'. But the way the langauge is structured I think it would be likely that the full translation of Mount Doom would be one word.
 
ehm.. yes, i did already mention all this in the first post, just read it all and carefully, my question was answered by metalhed..
 
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