Tolkien stated in a letter to the novelist Naomi Mitchison that his Orcs had been influenced by George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin.
Tolkien, especially The Lord of the Rings. Orcs were brought into modern usage by the fantasy writings of J. Earlier fictional monsters with names similar to 'orc' can be found in the Old English poem Bēowulf, in Early Modern poetry, and in European folk tales and fairy tales.
An Orc is a fictional humanoid creature akin to a goblin.