I’ve seen the god set described as a “typhonian animal.” So, is Typhlosion named after Typhos?

Well, I’m not sure what Set has to do with it, but it seems plausible to me.  Typhlosion’s name seems like it ought to come from “typhoon” and “explosion,” which makes some sense because typhoons are violent and destructive, like explosions and fire, but is also a weird choice given that typhoons are primarily calamities of wind and water, and don’t really fit with Typhlosion’s fire-related abilities.  The monster Typhon (or Typhos, or Typhoeus, or Typhaon, or however you want to spell it) was also violent and destructive and also had wind and storm powers, but is more appropriate to a Fire-type because he’s buried under Mount Aetna and is the cause of the volcano’s eruptions.  And hey, Typhlosion is one of only five Pokémon that can learn Eruption.  Typhon is supposed to have had a hundred different bestial heads and voices, so I’m sure one of the bloody things resembles Typhlosion’s.  What I’m slightly uncomfortable about is reaching to something from Greek mythology so early in Pokémon’s history, since Game Freak’s designers have explicitly said in the past that they don’t usually look to classical myth for design ideas.  The long u-sound in the Japanese name, Bakufūn (or Bakphoon), also seems to point more strongly to “typhoon,” and this is the etymology offered by the Japanese Pokémon wiki.  I suppose it could simply be a reference to both Typhon and typhoons.  The etymologies are unrelated – typhoon derives from a Chinese word – but Pokémon wouldn’t be the first to notice the fortuitous similarity (Wikipedia cites a book that suggests the Chinese word ultimately comes from the Greek, via Arabic and Persian, but I am deeply sceptical).