J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings has been translated, with varying degrees of success, into dozens of languages from the original English. Tolkien, an expert in Germanic philology, scrutinized those that were under preparation during his lifetime, and made comments on early translations that reflect both the translation process and his work. To aid translators, and because he was unhappy with the work of early translators such as Åke Ohlmarks with his Swedish version, Tolkien wrote his Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings in 1967; this was released publicly in 1975 in A Tolkien Compass, and again, retranscribed, in the 2005 book The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion. The complexity of the book, the nature of Tolkien's prose style, and the many names of characters and places combine to make translation into any language a challenge. Linguists have examined translations into several languages, noting the specific difficulties in each case, and the choices and errors that translators have made.

The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel by the English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. Written in stages between 1937 and 1949, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold.