Gollum’s original name in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings was Sméagol.
Sméagol belonged to a river-dwelling people related to hobbits. On his birthday, he discovered the One Ring with his relative Déagol while they were fishing. Sméagol killed Déagol to obtain the Ring, and the Ring’s influence eventually drove him away from his community and into the Misty Mountains.
He became known as Gollum because of the strange choking sounds he made in his throat. Tolkien presents Gollum as a divided and tragic character: the name Sméagol represents the person he once was, while Gollum reflects the identity shaped by isolation, obsession, and the Ring.
Déagol is often mistaken for Gollum’s original name, but Déagol is the relative who finds the Ring first. Sméagol is also the name Frodo sometimes uses when appealing to the creature’s earlier, more sympathetic nature.