На самом деле абсолютно точно известно, что Роулинг придумала имя от фонаря. Это было в её интервью на период 5 книги, так что враг Мерлина тоже не при чем :)


Lydon: What about names themselves? Muggles, to begin, but the whole catalogue of - er - wizards: Albus Dumbledore, Voldemort - er - Hagrid.

JKR: I'm big on names - I like names, generally. You have to be really careful giving me your name if it's an unusual one, because you will turn up in book six. Erm - I - I collect - some of them are invented; Voldemort is an invented name, Malfoy is an invented name, Quidditch is invented, erm - but I also collect them, from all kinds of places: maps, street names, people I meet, old books, old saints, erm - Mrs Norris, people will have recognised, comes from Jane Austen. Erm - Dumbledore is an old English word meaning bumblebee. Because Albus Dumbledore is very fond of music, I always imagined him as sort of humming to himself a lot.

Что касается этимологии, то можно притянуть широкий спектр, благо среди европейских языков есть где разгуляться.

Voldemort, Lord – In Swedish, mord means “murder.” In French, mort means “death.” If you translate each section of the name in French, vol de mort means “flight from death” (meaning escaping death). Also, in French, vol translates to “the act of stealing,” giving Voldemort’s name the alternate meaning “stealing from death.” In Norwegian and Danish, vold means “violence.” In Danish, volde means “to cause” and could be derived from the Latin valde, meaning “great, exceedingly, strongly, powerfully.” Using these definitions, Lord Voldemort’s name would then mean “excessive, great, or extreme death.”