J.R.R. Tolkien’s full middle name was Reuel. His complete name was John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, and the initials in his familiar author name represent John, Ronald, and Reuel. The middle name is therefore not an abbreviation or a fictional name from Middle-earth.
Tolkien was born John Ronald Reuel Tolkien on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein, in what was then the Orange Free State. His father was Arthur Reuel Tolkien, and the name Reuel appeared in the family as a given name. Tolkien later became internationally known through The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and his writings on the mythology of Middle-earth.
Readers sometimes assume that Ronald was Tolkien’s middle name because it is the most commonly used part of his name in biographies. Reuel is the second middle name in the conventional English ordering, and it is the source of the final initial in “J.R.R. Tolkien.”