So anyone who's reading this and cares about this subject probably knows this already, but, while the Lemegeton as we have it is almost certainly a 17th-century English compilation, the title, over which E. M. Butler (Ritual Magic, p. 65) puzzled briefly, and which Joseph Peterson (2001) ascribed to the compiler's ignorance of Latin and desire for something meaning "Little Key of Solomon" (clavicula itself is a Latin diminutive form, so the Clavicula Salomonis is already the "little" or "lesser" key of Solomon), as the name of a magical work ascribed to Solomon, predates that compilation.
In the printed Latin edition of the Ars Notoria that was included in the "1600" and other "per Beringos fratres" editions of Agrippa's Opera, we find:
"[...] ideo est ars notoria, quia quibusdam notulis brevissimis omnium comprehensibiliter scriptorum edocet cognitionem, sicut etiam ait Salomon in tractatus Lemegeton, hoc est, in tractatu spritualium & secretorum experimentorum" (see for example this copy on Google Books).
It's actually a little odd that Peterson didn't remark on this at the time [EDIT: he did -- see here], since this line appears in Robert Turner's 1657 English translation of the Ars Notoria which is included in full in his edition of the Lemegeton, by far and away the best print edition of this grimoire:
"[...] it is called the Notory Art, because in certain brief Notes, it teacheth and comprehendeth the knowledge of all Arts: for so Solomon also saith in his Treatise Lemegeton, that is, in his Treatise of Spiritual and Secret Experiments" (Peterson, p. 170; p. 18 of the 1657 first edition of Turner's Notory Art of Solomon).
The similar form lemogethon appears as part of a string of barbarous names in cap. LXXV of the Liber Iuratus Honorii (the Sworn Book of Honorius), which was in turn borrowed from the Ars Notoria ; in the printed edition it appears (as lemogethom) as part of an oration to be said before the third Note of Philosophy (p. 634 of the copy of Agrippa linked above, Turner p. 79). The 13th-century Ars Notoria sive Flores Aurei at Yale (Mellon MS. 1) includes (fol. 6vo) a shorter version of the same oration, beginning Lemogeton.
In one of the BnF Ars Notoria MSS. (BnF Lat. 7154, dated 16th century) is a reference to "libro suo [Salomonis] quæ Lemogethon nominatur." (fol. 11ro). I think, but am not sure (since I have practically no experience reading manuscripts of the period so am unfamiliar with some of the scribal abbreviations & letter-forms used) that some text similar to the passage I quoted in Latin above appears in the 14th-century BnF Lat. 7152, fol. 2ro., about halfway down the second column; the name of Solomon's treatise appears different, but I can't tell exactly what it is and I don't have access to Véronèse's critical Latin text.
[EDIT: later found a copy of L'Ars Notoria au Moyen Âge. BnF Lat. 7152 belongs to what Véronèse calls "Version A"; Véronèse reads the names of Solomon's tract on secret and spiritual experiments as "Demegeton" in Sloane MS. 1712, "Lemogetan" in Mellon MS. 1, "Lemodegan" in BnF Lat 7152.]
None of this answers the question of what, if anything, the name means, but it does suggest that the 17th-century compiler assembled and redacted various texts attributed to Solomon under this title to meet the demand for a rumoured, but lost (or fictitious) work, quite likely spurred by Turner's 1657 publication. Compare the various fake Necronomicons that have been produced since the 1970s.
More might follow if I ever get the hang of reading mediæval Latin manuscripts.
Meanwhile I see the Elucidation of Necromancy (Joseph Peterson's forthcoming edition of texts & translations of various magical MSS. that were turned into the Heptameron seu Elemental Magica) listed on a website called "Children's Book World." I suppose it helps to get started young on this kind of thing, but still . . .
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