A family name found among the Hobbits of the Bree-land, presumably derived from their habit of making tunnels or smials in which to live. We never directly encounter a member of the Tunnelly family, and we're not told where they resided. At least some might have lived in Bree itself, or they may have been inhabitants of the village of Staddle, the main settlement of the Bree-hobbits, which lay on the far (eastern) side of the Bree-hill. The name may also have been represented in the Shire.1
It should be noted that, because the name Tunnelly is clearly related to the English word 'tunnel', it cannot have been the actual name used by this family. Rather, it represents an anglicisation of the family's original (unrecorded) name, which would have derived from their own Westron language.
Notes
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The name Tunnelly appears in a list of families of the Bree-hobbits, alongside an observation that many (but not all) of those names were also found in the Shire. Whether Tunnelly was one of those names shared with the Shire is therefore ambiguous. The connection with Hobbit-holes - as popular in the Shire as in the Bree-land - means that the name's occurrence in the Shire is by no means implausible.
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- Updated 19 March 2020
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