In Holland it's a bit different;

Bilbo Baggins became: Bilbo Balings

I think the reason they did that is the GG part.. we pronounce a G (djee) like a ch, you make the sound with your throat, it would be too hard to pronounce it properly for most people I suppose. You would get something like 'bachings" which is ofcourse totally different from what it's supposed to be..

Middle earth became Midden-Aarde, which is translated as central earth.. So that's almost the same..

Luckily, they have kept the first name in the translations, but the name, Bilbo Baggins, is transformed to Bilbo Lommelun in Norwegian. See, I am from Norway. Now, Lommelun means something like: Soft and nice, refferring to your pocket. Thats pretty whack But a cool thing is that the name for Tolkiens "world" is calle Middle Earth right? But it is also refferred to as Midgaard who is an old scandinavian viking-word. In Norwegian it means:

-Midtg’rd - G’rden i midten, den viktigste

And in english it means : The center place , the most important farmhouse.

Aint that cool? If you are from a different part of the world, or knows the translations in other languages, tell us !

I dont think the ring is involved. You see, its a bit different to explain.

The first part of the word is easy; Lomme - Pocket
But the other part; lun - is hard to translate, though I know what it means.

But to tell it another way: Lommelun can also mean; Happy to live in your part (pocket) of whatever place your living in, [b:3315689v]or[/b:3315689v] being as calm and soft and nice as a....pocket!

I dont know if I made it clearer or really messed this up

That's awesome, liriel! And quite appropriate .

You see, in Russian we have several different translations of LOTR and The Hobbit. In the most popular one Bilbo Baggins is presented as Bilbo Soomnicks ("oo" is pronounced as in the english "root" for example). "Soomka" just means "the bag" in Russian. Thus such a translation is very close to the original meaning of this familyname. There is another variant as "Torbins" - as "torba" means a huge, oldstyle bag which was used by the piligrims (it was often tied to the saddle on horseback). The second variant is even closer to the plot of "The Hobbit" and LOTR with it's ponies carrying huge bags with food, tobacko and even fryingpans, on their backs.
In some other translations (including the official - cinema translation of Peter Jackson's film) the name is not translated at all and is pronounced as it is in the original English variant - Bilbo Baggins.

Bilbo Beggins, is transformed by Bilbo Lommelunu in the Norwegian language. I read and it was very interesting to me.