Work Text:
ON HOW I CAME BY THE NAME BAGGINS.
By J. Baggins.
The Dark Lord had been destroyed and the King of Gondor had returned. Once again, peace reigned in Middle-earth.
After Frodo and Bilbo set sail, Ponto Baggins became the new head of the family, being the last male heir to carry the surname. However, it was well known that Ponto was a widower and had only one daughter: Angelica Baggins. Thus, no one doubted that fate was determined to wipe the Baggins surname from the face of Middle-earth.
However, history and genealogy rarely follow such direct paths.
It turns out that a few years later, Ponto found love again, in the form of fellow widow Firiel Underhill. They had twin sons: Bego and Bugo Baggins. Thus, it seemed that the Baggins surname was guaranteed to continue for a few more generations. But fate, once again, had other plans: Bego never married or had children, while Bugo had nine daughters with his wife Daisy Hornblower.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), Angelica Baggins also ended up getting married, although it took her a long time to do so, not least because of her vain and self-centered attitude, which drove away all her suitors one by one. Eventually, she married a man named Milo Goodenough, in a marriage that was neither particularly happy nor long-lasting, for although divorce did not exist at the time, Angelica and Milo ended up living apart after three long and painful years. However, during that time they had a son, whom they named Fosco-Filibert-Ferumbras-Faramir (as they could never agree on a single name).
The question of Fosco-Filibert-Fenumbras-Faramir's surname remained unresolved for years and years: Milo wanted to give his son the surname Goodenough-Baggins, while Angelica insisted on using the surname Baggins-Goodenough. There was never a clear winner in the dispute, and poor Fosco-Filibert-Fenumbras-Faramir appeared with one surname on some documents and the other on others.
As soon as he could, Fosco-Filibert-Fenumbras-Farmir Goodenough-Baggins/Baggins-Goodenough moved to the other end of the Shire and never spoke to his parents again. In his new home, he became close friends with the adventurers Tommy Took and Lily Boffin, and together they traveled the length and breadth of the Reunited Kingdom. Tommy Took decided to stay and live in Gondor, while Lily and Fosco-Filibert-Fenumbras-Faramir returned to the Shire and were married shortly thereafter.
They had two sons and two daughters, who took their mother's surname: Boffin, to leave behind all the family drama of Baggins-Goodenough/Goodenough-Baggins.
And so, the Baggins surname finally came to an end. Or so it seemed.
It was four generations later that my grandfather, the baker Doderick Boffin, was born. He was a peculiar hobbit obsessed with the epic battles of the Third Age, convinced that he had been born in the wrong era, one in which the elves had already departed centuries ago for the Undying Lands. Delving into the genealogical records, he discovered his legacy: he was a direct descendant of Fosco-Filibert-Fenumbras-Faramir. And so, having read The Red Book of Westmarch to exhaustion and thus being well aware of the exploits of our distant ancestors, he decided to take back the Baggins surname. In fact, I suspect that his strange obsession with the War of the Ring also had a lot to do with the name he chose for my father: Samwise, like the legendary Samwise Gamgee.
So yes, my father's name is Samwise Baggins. Laugh if you want.
By the way, this is where the story gets interesting, with a twist that I myself don't quite understand.
Eventually, Samwise Baggins also found love, on a cold winter night, when a peculiar human woman, who was more than twice his height, walked into our bakery.
My father says he was instantly smitten when he saw her bump her head on the doorframe.
Well, it turns out that woman's name was Alice, with no last name or family, and she came from a wonderful land far away (which she never wants to tell me about, no matter how much I ask). When she arrived in The Shire, her only possessions were a peculiar quartz glass lens and a piece of paper with precise instructions on how to make another one. After paying the local glazier to create the second lens, she used both lenses to build her own telescope.
Now she helps my father in the bakery during the day, and at night she studies the sky. My father, for his part, helps her create a catalog of stars and make illustrations of what she observes through the telescope (they are particularly interested in some strange spiral things that can be seen far away).
And well, as you can imagine, from the union of the two of them, I was born. A half-halfling, destined to inherit the bakery, but with ambitions for something more. And that is the story of how I came by the surname Baggins.