21. The Difficulty in Tracking Down the Original Robin Hood
Robin Hood was probably just a generic period nickname for criminals, which makes tracking down the original outlaw legend difficult. In England, Robin was and remains a diminutive of the name Robert, and Robert was a very common first name back then – even more so than today.
Likewise, Hood was a common surname in medieval England. As a result, identifying just which criminals named Robin Hood or some variation thereof might have inspired the legend, is a particularly difficult task for historians. That partially explains why numerous candidates have been proposed over the years.