It would be very interesting to see how Rumplestiltskin got his rather unusual name. Sadly, I agree that based on his unfortunate character description, Rumple’s dad could rather meanly give his son a name he knows would cause his kid lifelong teasing. Perhaps that is even why Rumple now traffics in names.
I was reading the origin and meaning of the name, and it’s quite interesting. According to Wikipedia:
The name Rumpelstilzchen in German means literally “little rattle stilt”. (A stilt is a post or pole which provides support for a structure.) A rumpelstilt or rumpelstilz was the name of a type of goblin, also called a pophart or poppart that makes noises by rattling posts and rapping on planks. The meaning is similar to rumpelgeist (“rattle ghost”) or poltergeist, a mischievous spirit that clatters and moves household objects. (Other related concepts are mummarts or boggarts and hobs that are mischievous household spirits that disguise themselves.) The ending -chen is a German diminutive and designates something as “little” or “dear”, depending on context.
I like that the German suffix “-chen” can mean dear as in “dearie” 🙂
As to Peter Pan being Rumple’s long-lost brother, I have mixed feelings. While I could see Rumple being a Lost Boy as a child, I think adding another branch to an already ladened family tree could be a bit much.
Maybe instead of 3×8 being about another family connection, it could just be about little Rumple’s time in NL as a Lost Boy. Since we’re going to see Rumple’s father, we might just get a glimpse of young Rumple’s unhappy home life before Rumple ran away to NL. Maybe that is when he meets PP for the first time. I wonder who would play young Rumple; whoever it is would need to be a tremendous child actor to come close to measuring up to Robert Carlyle’s amazingness.
"That’s how you know you’ve really got a home. When you leave it, there’s this feeling that you can’t shake. You just miss it." Neal Cassidy