Ad. Avradî f. “*Varda”
An Adûnaic name for a goddess with the title
Gimilnitîr “Star-kindler” (SD/428). Though Tolkien never made it explicit, it is clearly the Adûnaic name of
Varda (S.
Elbereth). This name is curious, since [v] is not one of the phonemes used in Adûnaic (SD/418). Most likely it is pronounced [awradī].
Tolkien said that to represent the sound
[w], he sometimes “used ‘v’ in the Anglicanizing of Adunaic names” (SD/434). Carl Hostetter and Patrick Wynne suggested (
AAD/12) that it may be a derivative of Primitive Elvish ✶
Baradā.