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[Surname] Re: 'robber'
in reply to a message by Anon.
I think the holders of that name would prefer 'plunderer' ...I had always guessed that since it's origins were in Waterford (a county in SE Ireland) the scene of many Viking incursion that it probably had to do with the Viking raiders themselves or perhaps the Irish who raided the Viking settlements. The Vikings were the first to actually build cities in Ireland. The Irish population was totally agrarian at the time.

If you were one of them, you’d call yourself a ‘plunderer’ and if you were the victim of the plundering, you’d call them ‘robbers’...I don't really have any others that would seem to have such obvious mixed connotations, though I suspect they exist.
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