Steve - again, precisely. Rehashing my earlier remarks about the Ash Lad, one element names (not one syllable!) are relatively uncommon. Expanding with a couple of examples, Helen (Gk) is generally translated as either 'white' or 'shining', whereas the one syllable John translates to 'Yahweh is gracious'; despite being one syllable in English, it is (apparently) from Hebrew 'yo' + 'chanan' (hence, I presume, the Germanic variants on Johan).

Extending the discussion, my own name is a real name. It's the name you all know me by (let's be honest, no disrespect to Anne, but it's only a bunch of pixels, her birth certificate might equally declare him to be John Doe, if you see what I mean! ;-) ). It's the Germanic original of my given middle name, which is why I adopted it when I began Dark Age (ooops! ;-) ) re-enactment. But it's a name that many people know me by either exclusively or preferentially, online & in real life. So is it not real?

As with most names, it's a multi-element name ræd + wulf. Ræd is the word that become rede - 'counsel'. 'Wolf counsel' - I can actually say "Cunning is my middle name" & it's the truth! ;-) Anne, I am quite sure, is a more scholarly student than I am, so could better comment on this point, but names morph very easily. I am dredging my memory here, but I remember querying Hugh Lupton (sorry, name dropping again!) over this. Apart from the Ash Lad & the Troll, there is another Ash Lad story I know which involves... well, essentially, it's a re-telling of Thor fishing for Jormungandr. and it's that pair of tales that, 20-odd (some of them very odd!) years ago put the thought into my head (there's a lot of room... ;-) ) that 'The Ash Lad' sounded like a deduced & handed down description of someone whose name originally was "Aesc-something"...

So no, as a very complex & extended name, I doubt that Rumpelstiltskin is in any way the 'original', and for that reason alone, never mind many others, I am quite sure there are many other versions. As for motifs, as I said back in my first post, I think it was Bob Silverberg who said there were only 7 stories & any you want can be reduced to one (or more) of those. I've never heard of Stith's Motifs, but thank 'ee. Oi shall naow go orf an' look 'em up! ;-)