I was reading Mary Beard's SPQR and she claimed on page 71:
The name 'Romulus' is itself a give-away. Although Romans usually assumed that he had lent his name to his newly established city, we are now fairly confident that the opposite was the case: 'Romulus' was an imaginative construction out of 'Roma'. 'Romulus' was merely the archetypal 'Mr Rome'.
This isn't the first time I've seen the claim that not only the figure of Romulus but his name are later constructions. How do we know this is the case?
To be clear, I understand the reasons to be skeptical of the existence of Romulus or of any level of historicity regarding Rome's founding myth. What I'm specifically asking about is how we know that the name 'Romulus' isn't a proper Latin name, which seems like a much more specific claim - I mean, Remus didn't exist either, but I've never seen the claim that 'Remus' isn't a name at all.
The point Mary Beard makes is that "Romulus" means "man from Rome". That a man existed with this name BEFORE Rome was founded raises an eyebrow. That a man called "man from Rome" founded a place and called it Rome would be quite the bizarre turn of events.
The name might have referred to Romans in general around this time or been a name an Etruscan or other city called an individual from Rome that the Romans later picked up on.
We can safely say the seven Kings of Rome were equally fictitious and the story of Remus is awfully convenient given the Roman history that followed. So given the name it is sensible to conclude there was no Romulus founding Rome.
There are also hints Rome, or at least part of it had another name at one point. I believe Mary Beard also goes over that. There was an obscure festival that some Roman citizens held as predating Rome and was titled with the name of the previous city. I don't have my copy of SPQR with me but I believe Mary Beard refers to a letter Cicero had written after learning of this.