In The Leaping Hare by George Ewart Evans and David Thomson there's a chapter on the naming of the hare, with a 13th century poem in Middle English that repeats 77 different names for the hare – most of them abusive, such as:

"Pe scotewine, pe skikart
Pe turpin, pe tirart"

Turpin, it appears, is the Old French for a soldier or a highwayman and comes from the Latin, turpis: nasty, corrupt, etc.

So was Dick Turpin, be reason of his name, destined to become a highwayman – or is it pure coincidence?