There's an interesting reference in the drafts for the Appendices...
Quote:
Hobbit This, I confess, is my own invention; but not one devised at random. This is its origin. It is, for one thing, not wholly unlike the actual word in the Shire, which was cubuc (plural cubugin).*
...
* For another, I must admit that its faint suggestion of rabbit appealed to me. Not that hobbits at all resembled rabbits, unless it be in burrowing. Still, a jest is a jest as all cubugin will allow, and after all it does so happen that the coney (well known in the Shire if not in ancient England) was called tapuc, a name recalling cubuc, if not so clearly as hobbit recalls rabbit. [This note was later struck out]
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In any case, I think Tolkien's choice of
hobbit easily predated how he ended up explaining it within the translation conceit, yes. I don't think any of the Dwarf-names were necessarily even 'translations' in the early going, for example; rather Tolkien was probably just using a convenient external source for his tale.