Isn't this reconstruction a bit on the slim side? Aquinas was reportedly, let's say, a man of portly presence. I can't find a scholarly source on the matter, at the moment, but here are two quotes I found on the website of a nun[1] (no less, so probably written in good faith): > St. Thomas was a huge heavy bull of a man, fat and slow and quiet; very mild and magnanimous but not very sociable; shy, even apart from the…
Chesterton described Aquinas as looking quite like Chesterton. Judging by the name at least half a millenium separates Myron Shibley from Aquinas. Can't it just be a myth, as it seems to hang on a single anecdote? For comparison, the medievals thought that Ovid's name, Publius Ovidius Naso, was because he had a good nose for sniffing out the truth.
(And, as already mentioned, Umberto Eco kind of made fun of the semblance.)
Regarding Ovid's name, I think, there was kind of a joy in circular evidence, more for aesthetic reasons than others. Compare, "artifex generale nomen vocatur quod artem faciat" (Isidore), or the notion that the lion indeed obscures its tracks by wiping its path by its wagging tail, because the lion is thus the example of Christianity preserving its secrets from its pagan enemies. There's a medieval joy, even satisfaction, in closures and folds, like this.