Gandalf (Daniel Weyman) receives his name in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 8 “Shadow and Flame” (2024), Amazon Prime
According to The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power showrunners Patrick McKay and JD Payne, their decision to introduce Gandalf to the series narrative was made primarily because, simply put, he’s one of the franchise’s most recognizable character.

Gandalf (Daniel Weyman) pleas for the Dark Wizard (Ciarán Hinds) to stop his quest for power in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 8 “Shadow and Flame” (2024), Amazon Prime
As seen in the second season finale, after a confrontation with The Dark Wizard which resulted in the complete destruction of their village, the Stoor Hobbit’s find themselves left with no choice but to search for a new home, in doing so reluctantly being forced to become a nomadic peoples.

Prior to their departure from the rubble, the Stoor’s, along with the Harefoots Poppy and Stoors, make sure to bid a proper farewell to their friend – and the man responsible for protecting them in the face of The Dark Wizard’s attack – The Stranger.

Thanking him for his help and wishing him well, the Hobbits, in light of their ally’s lack of a known name, finally bestow upon him with a proper moniker: “Grand-Elf”.
The Stranger (Daniel Weyman) arrives in Middle-earth in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 1 Episode 1 “A Shadow of the Past” (2022), Amazon Prime

Returning a short time later to the home of his friend Tom Bombadil, the Stranger ultimately realizes “It was all a test, wasn’t it? Another one of your riddles. I was meant to choose friendship over power. I was meant to help them. I was meant to find this.”

“A wizard does not find his staff,” he then declares. “It finds him. Like his name. Gandalf.”
Gandalf (Daniel Weyman) finally comes upon his staff in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 8 “Shadow and Flame” (2024), Amazon Prime
Notably, as fans of the books may know, the appearance of ‘Gandalf’ in the Second Age presents a conflict with the J.R.R. Tolkien’s original timeline.

As noted in the series’ ‘Appendix B’, after the Istari – or Wizards – did not appear in Middle-Earth until the Third Age, specifically after “a thousand years had passed, and the first shadow had fallen on Greenwood the Great.”

Further, not only did they arrive to the land rather late into the Age, Gandalf himself, per Unfinished Tales of Númenor, was “the last-comer” among them.
Gandalf the White (Sir Ian McKellen) draws his blade against the forces of Mordor during the Battle of the Morannon in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003), New Line Cinema
However, despite the existence of this stark timeline discrepancy, McKay and Payne say they still decided to introduce Gandalf to The Rings of Power because they believe that audiences would have been disappointed to not see the franchise’s “most beloved character.”

Asked during a recent interview with Deadline‘s Mike Fleming Jr. if they could provide any behind-the-scenes details regarding Gandalf’s introduction, McKay began, “We talked a lot about him over six years. We knew we wanted a wizard in the story, and we talked a lot with the Tolkien estate about what it takes to make it feel like Middle-Earth.”

“It’s like Christmas dinner,” he explained. “You got your turkey, you got your stuffing, you got your cranberry sauce, you got mashed potatoes. If you don’t have one of those? Here, you’ve got halflings and dwarves and humans and elves, you need a wizard in there to make it really feel like Middle-earth. The question is, which one? So he comes to Middle-earth and at first he doesn’t know who he is. And it was a journey discovery for him. And in some ways also for us at first, we just knew he was a wizard. And then as the pieces really started to come together, he said he’s a wizard who is found by halflings and who becomes really close with halflings.”
Gandalf (Daniel Weyman) mulls upon the new moniker given to him by Nori (Markella Kavenagh) in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 Episode 8 “Shadow and Flame” (2024), Amazon Prime
“Well, gee, close to halflings,” continued McKay. “A couple of centuries later, Gandalf, he eventually runs into Tom Bombadil at the end of his time, Middle-earth. Gandalf says, you know what? And this is in the books, I’m going to go hang out with Tom Bombadil. I got some things I got to talk to him about. And we said, well gee, when you leave a place, you don’t go to make a new friend. You go talk to an old friend and say goodbye and say, okay, well if this wizard had come across Tom Bombadil, that would make another sense for it to be Gandalf. A lot of things started coming together that really sort of pointed us to this wizard should be Gandalf. And we love the character so much. There’s hints also that Gandalf may have come earlier than the third age and wandered amongst some of the peoples of Middle-earth. So we went with that.”

“How do you make a Lord of the Rings show without Lord of the Rings‘ most beloved character?” Payne then interjected. “I think at the end of the day, what we came to was you can’t. If there’s any way we can justify him being around, it’s just too tempting to not go there.”
Gandalf (Sir Ian McKellen) attends a Dwarven dinner at the home of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), New Line Cinema
The complete second season of The Rings of Power is now streaming on Amazon Prime.