#on one hand he's king of the Smart Elves who all obsess about language and names and meanings

[comparativelysuperlative]

Everyone gets mad at Feanor for naming his kid “Third Finwe,” but Finwe picking the name Nolofinwe is kind of doing the same thing?

Like, “hi everyone, this is my kid future Ñoldoran of the house of FInwe.” (Even if you think “future Noldoran” is a stretch, “representative of the Noldor and the attributes they value” really isn’t.)

Finwe might have intended this. Not the part about the succession, but he does have reasons to emphasize the kid’s legitimacy. But if Feanor had named a kid this we’d absolutely be taking it as an aggressive claim about who should be king. And it wouldn’t be out of nowhere.

And sure, naming a kid Nelyafinwe is worse. Feanor is escalating to “no, you specifically don’t count” and ditching plausible deniability. But he probably does think Finwe started it.