Possible Etymology of Alexander

[Stevce]

The name Phillip
Phillip's name was written in Greek as ΦΙΛΙΠΠΟΣ, and it has the Greek etymology of φίλος phílos, "friend" and ἵππος híppos, "horse". However, how reliable is this? It is a well-know fact that the ancient Greeks Hellenized all foreign names to make them sound more Greek. Take for example:
Original name Greek name
Dārayava(h)uš : Dareios
Arbaku : Harapagus
Purushottama : Porus
All of these names have etymologies in Greek; Dareios (areios=soldier), Porus (porus=resource, plenty), Harapagus (harpage=plunderer).
After conquering the Thracians, Phillip established the city Phillippopolis/Φιλιππούπολη in Thrace. In the Thracian language it was translated as Pulpudeva. Pulpu, being the genitive (possessive) case of Phillip, and -deva meaning city. Most scholars tend to place Macedonian as being closer to the neighboring Illyrian and Thracian languages than Greek (John Shea, Macedonia and Greece. pp.23-35 ). Future posts will show the relation between ancient Thracian and Macedonian compared to modern Slavic languages. If we assume the languages were at least related (like Spanish and Portugese), the use of the name Pulpu indicates that the name “Phillippos” might have been different in the native Macedonian language.

[Starling]

I find it strange that there wasn't much discussion on the relationship between the names Alexander, Cassander and Lysander in relation to determining the etymology of Alexander. Alexander meaning gift of Ily and Ksanth applies to them too:

Ilyksandar > Aleksandar > Alexander

Ilyksandar > Ilysandar > Lysandar > Lysander

Ksandar > Kisandar > Kasandar > Cassander

Working in reverse with the asiatic renderings:

Iskandar > Iksandar > Aliksandar > Aleksandar/Ilyksandar

Sikandar > Iskandar

Here's what I found for the names of some of the Alexandrias:

Alexandria of Egypt

Arabic: الإسكندرية al-Iskandariyyah
Egyptian Arabic: اسكندرية‎‎ Eskendereya
Coptic: Ⲁⲗⲉⲝⲁⲛⲇⲣⲓⲁ, Ⲣⲁⲕⲟⲧⲉ Alexandria, Rakotə

The arabic rendering is clearly a phonetic version of Aleksandarija, with emphasis on a y sound between the i and a in the suffix. The Egyptian rendering is a variation on the already established Arabic while Coptic is closer to the usual Greek rendition.

Alexandria of Iraq

Currently known as Iskandaria
Arabic: الإسكندرية Al'iiskandaria
Other variations: Iskandariyah, Iskanderiyah, Iskanderiya, Iskanderiyeh or Sikandariyeh or Al Askandariyah

Alexandria of Issum (Issus)

Arabic (current name): الإسكندرونة İskenderun
Arabic after muslim conquest of Syria: الإسكندرون al-ʼIskandarūn
Ottoman Turkish: إسكندرون İskenderūn
Greek (middle ages): Αλεξανδρέττα Alexandretta, little Alexandria

Alexandria of Oxum

Currently known as Ai-Khanoum
Other variations: Aï Khānum or Ay Khanum
Seems to be the furthest from the original form and yet you can still kinda see how it got there.

Alexandria of Arachosia

Currently known as Kandahar or Qandahar
Pashto: کندها Kandahār
Dari: قندها Qandahār

It's worth noting that the province that consists of the former kingdom of Arachosia is also known as Kandahar and that this city is its capital.

Since the etymology of Philip was brought up earlier in the thread, I'd like to add to it. If the f/ph sound didn't exist in the Macedonian language at the time and was likely rendered from p or b, we get either pilip or bilip. The Thracian city of Philpopolis was called Pulpudeva in their language so Philip-o-polis = Pulp-u-deva. With the genitive case removed, the Thracian name for Philip seems to be Pulp. Now to my understanding this is how Pulp would become Philip in greek:

Pulp > Pulip > Pilip > Philip

The asiatic renderings of Philip near the start of the thread seem to be Pilip, Pilipisi and Pilipsu, with the consistent element being Pilip. My conclusion is that Philip's actual name was likely Pilip and that the Thracian Pulp was probably pronounced Pulip.

I've been looking at the various renderings of the name Philip in other languages and the Greek Philippos doesn't seem to account for the versions with a second l or the i sometimes present at the end. However, Pil/Pili seems to mean drank in most slavic languages (Czech and Bulgarian gave me saw, presumably as a metaphor for 'drinking' wood) while lep/lepi means beautiful. Pil-lep / Pil-lepi would account for both Phillip and Phillipi. It also seems to be etymologically related to the name Penelope, which is likely Pene-lepi. I also noticed that the overwhelming majority of languages seem to write it as Filip, Pilip or variations thereof. Only a few seem to use a version with 2 Ps, mostly latin derived languages and German, who obviously had contact with Greek and in the latter's case was likely due to the Hellenism thing. Among the listed diminutive forms of the name were Lip and Flip.

Does that look about right? And what about the other Macedonian names? Do we have more non-Greek versions of Macedonian names to work with? Place names are extremely useful it seems.

Seleucus was rendered as Silukku/Siluku in asia. Sil means power but might ukku/uku be their rendering of oko? If so then we get Sil-oko.