The Drûg-folk were a branch of Men, and we know that the first Men of any kind awoke in the year I 1 (that is, at the beginning of the Years of the Sun). We also know that there were Drûg-folk living among the Men of Brethil, who migrated into their forest home in about I 375.

This gives very little time indeed for the Drûg-folk to emerge as a separate people and form their own culture. They would have to have done so in a matter of about fifteen generations - a very brief timescale, but perhaps not absolutely implausible. An alternative possibility is that the primordial Drúedain awoke as a distinct branch of Men in Hildórien, and that they had therefore existed as a separate people from the beginning.

It is perhaps notable that drû was an Elvish word for 'wild'. Though the name the Drûg-folk chose for themselves was presumably from their own tongue, it is conceivable that they were influenced by the speech of Dark Elves. If that is the case, then they named themselves the 'wild folk'. Of course, this may simply be a linguistic coincidence, and the name Drûg might instead have some other unknown meaning in its original language.