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Title

In the drafts, the poem had the subtitle Prufrock among the Women.^[7] Eliot said "The Love Song of" portion of the title came from "The Love Song of Har Dyal," a poem by Rudyard Kipling.^[8] The form of Prufrock's name is like the name that Eliot was using at the time: T. Stearns Eliot.^[9] It has been suggested that Prufrock comes from the German word "Prüfstein" meaning "touchstone".^[10]

There was a "Prufrock-Littau Company" in St Louis at the time Eliot lived there, a furniture store; in a 1950 letter, Eliot said, "I did not have, at the time of writing the poem, and have not yet recovered, any recollection of having acquired this name in any way, but I think that it must be assumed that I did, and that the memory has been obliterated."^[11]