Based on Manetho's work, Sextus Julius Africanus called Stephinates the founder of the 26th Dynasty while another historian, Eusebius, placed a certain Ammeris "the Nubian" just before him.

[3] In 1917, Flinders Petrie was the first to argue that "Stephinates" was probably an Ancient Greek render of the Egyptian name Tefnakht, and first called this ruler "Tefnakht II" in order to distinguish him by the namesake Great Chief of the West who few decades earlier clashed against pharaoh Piye of the Kushite 25th Dynasty and later rose to kingship under the name Shepsesre Tefnakht (I), founding the short-lived Saite 24th Dynasty.

It is possible that many scarabs datable to this period, and bearing the otherwise unknown throne names Menibre and Iribre, belongs indeed to Tefnakht II and Nekauba.

[7] In more recent times, Oliver Perdu noticed close similarities in style, form and content between a newly discovered donation stela dating to Year 2 of Necho I, and a Year 8 donation stela of Shepsesre Tefnakht (I).

[8] Perdu's arguments were put in discussion by Dan'el Kahn who note that his epigraphic criteria here – such as the use of the tripartite wig, the slender figure of the king and the method through which the falcon-headed god keeps his head upright in stelas and temple wall reliefs contemporary with Tefnakht I's time – appear in use already in the early 25th Dynasty during Piye's or Shabaka's reign and even in Shoshenq V's Year 38 donation stela of the Chief of the Ma Tefnakht (I), who was Piye's rival.