Bard I

We have no definite date of birth for Bard, but we know that he slew Smaug in the year III 2941, so he was extant at that date. At that time he seemed worldly but still physically strong, so if we assume he was roughly thirty years old, he would have been born in - very approximately - III 2911.

The connection of Bard's name to the tradition of medieval tale-tellers and troubadors seems obvious, but as an originally Gaelic word it doesn't fit easily into the linguistic pattern established for the Dale-men. A more likely source is Old English, where the name would mean something like 'wise warrior'. That fits better with Bard's character, too, though Tolkien himself doesn't offer a definitive origin for Bard's name.