: Well, I've since moved on to finishing the essay but the name stays with me. I'm not enough of a linguist to understand how to break the words down. I believe "tyrn" is the plural of "toron, torn" (brother). "Gorthad" seems to be a combination of two words, the second one possibly a variant of "atta" (two) or "adu" (double). "Gor" is the hard part. There are several possible candidates, I think, which could mean "vigor, vigour", "dread, horror", "round,rounded", etc.

At first blush Tyrn may simply be the Sindarin word for downs. Analougous to Ered or Emyn. Downs are a particular geologic formation so it would use a different word than Emyn (hills). I saw a web site that opined tyrn was plural of torn, but it appeared to be just a guess.

As for the Gor- root, the round, rounded meaning appears most likely. Barrows were rounded mounds.

In other words, it might simply be a direct translation, or rather vice-a-versa.

Russ