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If you are trying to judge whether or not a book or article is reliable or scholarly, the best quick decision point is simply to see whether or not it has a reference list. Any truly scholarly work will have a reference list or bibliography attached to it so you can look up its own sources.

Usually I look at the language and look it up in a relevant monolingual dictionary specialising in names for that language. If I don't know of one for that language, I look up the names verbatim on Google, and try to find the authoritative sources. Mainly, I look through Wikipedia or Wiktionary to see if they have a sourced etymology for the name or other names in the same language (which could lead back to the name I'm searching for). Sometimes I also look to less reliable sites to see if I can find an etymology that I can trace back.

Depending on the time period you're looking for, Jstor can be great for attestations of rare/historical names