"The name is from the Old French of Earth-badman.
"Warlord of Kor"
Terry Gene Carr
He might have taken a suggestion from Bunyan; who besides his great religious allegory and the curious life of Mr. badman, couched a moral lesson in a description of the actual tradesman of his time.
"English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century"
Leslie Stephen
Indeed there are very good internal reasons for thinking that no less a person than Thackeray must have known Mr. badman.
"The English Novel"
George Saintsbury