[varmintman]

“Neanderthal” means Neander Valley auf Deutsch... Basically just a place name.

[Verginius Rufus]

Yes, thal (modern spelling tal) just means "valley"--it's cognate with the English word "dale." (German t often corresponds to English d as in Tochter/daughter, tot/dead, treiben/drive, Tag/day, Tat/deed, taub/deaf, etc.).

I was just surprised to learn that the name was fairly recent and its origin was known--many European placenames are so old that nothing is known of how the name originated.