The name of this river is said to derive from Anglo-Saxon snáw-burna, which represents the actual name used by the Rohirrim, and is formed from a compound of the words for 'snow' and 'stream'. In the earliest drafts relating to this river, its name is spelt 'Snowborn' (implying an additional layer of meaning, since it rose among the snows of the White Mountains), though Tolkien amended this to the published spelling Snowbourn.
The '-bourn' element for 'stream' also appears in the name 'Shirebourn' for a river that ran through the Shire, reflecting the close linguistic origins of the ancestral Hobbits with the people of Rohan.
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