Jackie, you did better than I did searching the web - maybe because I looked generally and ended up with the film rather than the word.
Anyway, thanks for your research. I have now searched on Morrell and Rambo to come up with the following:
"The name Rambo came about when Morrell's wife brought in some apples for the author, at the time he was struggling to find a name for his character... the apples were a rare variety named "Rambo"! This seemed to fit perfectly and a modern day movie legend was born."
The Japanese / Chinese characters translate as 'chaos' and 'violence'. To think that Morrell stumbled on such an apposite name merely through an apple!
What is it about apples anyway? While we're at it I should mention that the Beatles called their recording company Apple because it is Ringo in Japanese. Add in Biblical references and the apple is clearly one significant fruit!
