The Cotton family was a working class family of Hobbits.
Cottar, the founder of the Cotton clan, was born some two hundred years before the War of the Ring. It was his grandson, Holman, who was the first to take the surname Cotton. "Long Hom", as Holman was known, is also the first of the Cottons to be explicitly connected with the village of Bywater, which remained the seat of the family from that time on.
Holman's son Tolman farmed the lands to the south of Bywater, and it was he who made the family one of the most important in the Shire. He played a significant part in the decisive Battle of Bywater, the most important step in the recovery of the Shire from Sharkey's Men, and his daughter Rose married Samwise Gamgee in the following spring.
 The Cotton Family Tree
Showing the prominent members of the Cotton clan. The figures after the names are those of birth (and death where that is recorded). A dashed line indicates marriage.
The name Cotton is a real-life English surname and means "cottage town".
It is also a translation of the Westron Hlothran, associated with the name Hlothram. Hlothran was "a fairly common village-name in the Shire", though none is mentioned (or noteworthy enough) on any map.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix C, "The Longfather-tree of Master Samwise"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, "The Scouring of the Shire"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, "The Chief Days from the Fall of Barad-dûr to the End of the Third Age"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix B, "Later Events Concerning the Members of the Fellowship of the Ring"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (ed.), "Guide to the Names in The Lord of the Rings", published in A Tolkien Compass (edited by Jared Lobdell), entry Cotton
- ↑ David Salo, "Hobbitish Place-names" dated 23 November 1998, Elfling (accessed 25 May 2018)
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Appendix F, "On Translation"
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 184, (dated 18 March 1956)