darn you, faldage... i headed into weekly themes to ask the very same question, delighted with the thought of how pleased ASp would be to find a discussion of a Weekly Theme word taking place right here, in Weekly Themes.

ah, well.

my question was essentially the same; has "rover" no earlier citations? surely Mr Stratemeyer didn't coin the word....

and out of curiosity, when did "rover" as a dog's name come into popular favor? and how apt the "naive" connotation is, particularly when stretched a bit to refer to a complete lack of intellect. now, *cats, OTOH, could surely never be referred to as rovers.