"I dunno! But if you get into the "History of Middle-Earth" series, you find out that Tolkien originally referred to the Noldorin Elves as "Gnomes". The word comes from a Greek root meaning "to know", and he used it to designate the Elves that had the highest level of knowledge."
So Snap, Crackle, and Pop are smarter than regular Elves--which is how they were able to invent the Silmarils. . .
Seriously, I didn't know that about the gnomes. That makes sense, though--from the Greek word "gignosko". Cool! Tolkien did some really interesting work on the etymology of folklore names. "Gandalf" also has the root-word "elf" in it in the original Norse epic Tolkien took the name from.
IIRC it means "Elf of the Wand" or something like that... referring to the staff he always carried. BTW I really liked how Gandalf had different names among different peoples. :)