There is an article in the Fall/Winter 2000 issue of JIES, "Antenor
and Vibshishana", by Marcel A. Meulder (pp 399-405).
I confess I do not completely understand what Meulder is saying,
partly because my grasp of the mythology involved is weak, but also, I
think, because he is being a little obscure. Specifically, I am
ignorant of who the "Rakshashas" (of the _Ramayana_) are. Antenor is a
minor character in the Iliad, who seems to have very ancient
antecedents; i.e., Homer wove traditional material regarding him into
the Iliad. The idea is that Antenor and Vibshishana are reflexes of
the same character, descending down into two distinct branche of IE.
He writes (pp. 403-404):
--start quote--
[...] the etymology proposed by Chr. Rose [...]: the etymology of the
Trojan noun *Aleks-(andros) [my transliteration --mark odegard] would
be the same as this of the hero *Rakshasa; both nouns would derive
from the Indo-European root *H2letk- meaning 'to make an attempt';
therefore the Trojan Aleksandros would be the deprecatory homonym of
the laudatory Greek noun derived from the indo-European root *H2lek(s)
meaning 'to shield, to guard against' [...]. So, while Vibishana is
opposed to Ravana, without indicating it by his name. Antenor's name
and behavoiur would indicate he is opposed to Alexandros.
--end quote--
I don't know if he's doing the word *Rakshasa or Vibishana. And again,
I am in the dark as to exactly what is being said.
--- In cybalist@..., João Simões Lopes Filho <jodan99@...> wrote:
> 1) Is there any possibily to reconstruct or deduce PIE anthroponyms,
at least the meanings?
>
> 2) The more usual form of IE anthroponyms are compounds, like
Polybios, Leukippos, Sigismund, Sus^rava, Vis^taspa, etc.
>
>
> *k^lewos "glory" > Greek -klees Sanskrit -s^ravas Slav -slavu
(? corrupted for slovo?)
>
> cf. Euklees = Sus^ravas- *Su-k^lewos "good glory"
>
> "animal-names",
> horse - Leukippos, Vis^taspa, Krs^as^va, Epona, As^vapati
> bear - Bernard, Bjo¨rn, Artognos, Art, Math, Rksha
> wolf - Lykourgos, Adolf, Wulfila, Wolfgang
>
> etc
>
> theophoric names
>
> protected by god X; hero of god X, child of god X, animal of god X
etc
>
> Thorsteinn, Thorbjo¨rn, Diomedes, Diodoros, Theodoros, etc
>
> 3) Why did these compounds almost disappear in Latin?
>
> Latin preferred names like Tullus, Servius, Hostilius, Horatius,
Virgilius, Ovidius, etc
>
> Could be the name Lucretia < *Leuko-rotH-ya "White Wheel", parallel
to Arianrhod *Argantorota "Silver Wheel".