Be aware that the Silmarillion as published is actually four books. Here's a summary of the first two (Ainulindale and Valaquenta):

In the beginning God and the Valar made the world. The Valar (~ angels) are pretty cool, except Melkor, who sucks and wants to destroy everything. He's a persuasive blighter, though.

Unfortunately I can't really summarise you past the beginning of the Quenta Silmarillion proper. You could try just skipping ahead (jump down to Chapter 18 for where the story starts getting some space to breathe instead of being 'and then two hundred years passed'), but you'll then probably need to poke around the index to find out what a Gondolin or a Thingol is.

One more option: next year the Estate is releasing a standalone version of the tale of Beren and Luthien, to go with the Children of Hurin one. Between them, they should actually do a decent job of orienting you in Beleriand and help you get through the denser parts of the Silm.

hS

First was Finwë, whose name doesn’t mean anything (though it can be interpreted as ‘Hairy man’. House of Finwë: werewolves? Worth considering.) He got married to a woman who was named Jewel by her father, and Weaver by her mother, elves tending to get one name from each.

The couple had a son, who Finwë called Finwë (as you do). Fortunately his mother named him Spirit of Fire, which he went by, so that makes things easier.

Finwë’s wife died, and Finwë got remarried (big drama there) to Indis, whose name pretty much means ‘woman’. Their first child was a daughter, who was called Findis, in the Meyer-honoured tradition of portmanteau names. It could mean ‘Hairy woman’. (House of Finwë werewolf theory: confirmed.)

Then they had a son, who Finwë named Finwë, because it worked once, so why not twice? Luckily Finwë the first had an attack of good sense and gave his sons add-on names: the older became Skilled Finwë, while the younger became Wise Finwë. His mother called him High Chief, which – given that Finwë was High King – was something of a slap in the face to the eldest son. (Hint: irritating someone named Spirit of Fire is not a good idea.)

Then there was another daughter, who Finwë called Sexy (all right, ‘desirable’), and her mother named Laughing Maiden. And then a third son, who was of course named Finwë. He got upgraded to Noble Finwë, while his mother continued her project of upsetting the previous son by calling him Wisdom.

Now, Skilled Finwë didn’t much like the fact that his mum was dead, and really hated his stepmother (possibly due to her malicious naming habits), and for that matter wasn’t too pleased with the implication that his half-brothers were wiser and nobler than him. When he got married, he decided to assert his position as his father’s son with a very large naming stick. He had seven(!) sons, all oh whom he named Finwë with various epithets.

First came Third Finwë (because Skilled Finwë and Original Finwë were the only other ones who count, you see). Then Chief Finwë, stealing the latter half of Wise Finwë’s mother-name. Then came Strong Finwë, Dark Finwë, and Skilled Finwë the second (who’s the only one who ended up using his father-name – surprise!). Finally we have the twins, Little Finwë and Last Finwë.

Fortunately their mother was one of the few members of the house with a lick of sense. She named them (in order) Handsome, Gold-shaper, Swift to Anger, Red-faced, Little Father (this is Skilled Finwë the second; apparently it was really obvious), and then the twins, both of whom she called Redhead. Of course Skilled Finwë (the elder) objected to the duplicate name, so she called one of them Doomed; he didn’t like that much better.

At the same time, Wise Finwë was having his own kids, and it seems like his wife had a bit of a controlling hand over his naming tendencies (well, she was called Holy herself, so she had a vested interest). His first son came very near to being another Finwë, but ended up as Hairy Chief instead. On the other hand, remember that Wise Finwë’s mother-name was High Chief… yeah, there’s a lot of Chiefs in his line.

So his second son was called Mighty Chief. Then he had a daughter, whose name doesn’t seem to be translatable; probably a good thing, frankly. Then he had a third son, and decided this ‘partial self-naming’ thing wasn’t good enough, so he just straight-up called him High Chief. As you do. Then he stopped, because there was no point competing with Mr. Seven Sons, was there?

Noble Finwë was… pretty much as bad. He called his first son Champion, which is original, but his wife kept up the crazy by naming him Wisdom, which was also her husband’s mother-name, and another slap in the face for Wise Finwë. Then they had another son, who Noble Finwë named… Champion again. Hey, it worked for dad! He distinguished them by naming the eldest Hairy Champion (House of Finwë werewolf status: howling at the moon) and the younger Iron Champion.

The third son was another Champion, and may have been born after Skilled Finwë’s twins: he ended up as Champion of Doom. His mother’s contribution was to call him Fell Fire, riffing off Skilled Finwë’s preferred mother-name – look, these people really didn’t like each other, is what I’m saying.

Finally we have the daughter of the house: Noble Woman. Sounds good, but remember this is Noble Finwë’s daughter – he basically called her Girl Me. Her mother was even more baffled by having a daughter, and called her Tomboy.

At that point the sheer madcap naming ends; the following generation all have fairly sane names. But as a final capstone to the whole thing, when Wise Finwë became High King after Skilled Finwë’s death, he decided to add his father’s name to his own. The fact that it was already there didn’t bother him: he just stuck it on the front, becoming Finwë Wise Finwë.

This, naturally, the sons of Noble Finwë couldn’t stand (what with their father being High King back home now). So they did the same thing, retroactively renaming poor dad as Finwë Noble Finwë.

See? It all makes perfect sense!

(Conclusion one: Elves aren’t as imaginative about their names as we’d think. Conclusion two: House Finwë really hated each other. Conclusion three: they’re probably werewolves.)

hS