Aiwendil-thank you also for your post, I didn't see it the first time around. However, you say:
Quote:
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I think it can be pretty well demonstrated that Elvish names are in fact repeated.
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I took this to mean that Tolkien didn't mind repeating names, because of the stress. Indeed names are repearted, but JRR writes in the second essay on the Glorfindels in
The Peoples of Middle-Earth: "This repition of so striking a name, though possible, would not be credible. No other major character in the Elvish legends reported in
The Silmarillion and
The Lord of the Rings has a name borne by another Elvish person of importance."
Thus, two important people shouldn't have the same name; although the first Legolas doesn't have prominent importance, with this context, it wouldn't make sense for an important later elf to have the name. The Lorien Rumil is fine, because even though the Rumil who invented the first Tengwar is important, the later one isn't at all.