After the people of Eorl began to settle in the old Gondorian region of Calenardhon, they gave it a new name in their own tongue, calling it the 'Riddermark', the borderland of the Riders. In Gondor, however, Elvish nomenclature was preferred and so Hallas (the son of Steward Cirion who had gifted the land to the Riders) devised the Sindarin name Rochand ('horse-land') for the newly settled grasslands.
It was typical for Elvish place-names ending in -nd to lose their final 'd' in speech, and so the new land's common name in Gondor evolved to become Rochan, a change that would in fact only represent a step in the development of the name. The Sindarin ch sound did not exist in the Common Tongue, and so as the name became more widely used it also changed further, ultimately giving rise to Rohan, the land's familiar name at the time of the War of the Ring.
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- Updated 30 July 2018
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