[pvaldes]

My bet is that the only reason to have "harfoots" is avoiding to pay for the use of the copyrighted word "hobbits" in the near future.

It sounds like a fart. Definitely lacking the talent of Tolkien to find the surgically precise word for each term, but I can understand the legal aspects of the need-for-control part.

[tegeril]

Tolkien also named and described the Harfoots, so why would they be any differently copyrighted?

[Tagbert]

I thought it was interesting from a linguistic perspective. These events are 3000-6000 years earlier than those of the Lord of the Rings. The languages would have changed in all that time. I spent time wondering how Harfoot might have evolved into Hobbit or how Hobbit might have arisen and replaced Harfoot.

[astrange]

If you want to hear some strange sounding names, you can look up the actual Westron names of the hobbits - Frodo Baggins and the other Shire names being an "English translation" from the Red Book of Westmarch. Sam's name is actually "Banazîr Galbasi", so maybe he's Turkish.