來源: merriam-webster 線上詞彙網站
Ninja
The term and concept of the ninja was introduced into English by British spy
novelist Ian Fleming in the 1964 James Bond novel You Only Live Twice. It was
popularized by such works as Eric Van Lustbader's 1980 novel The Ninja and
the 1981 film Enter the Ninja. The term has proliferated to the point that a
2013 Google search for the word yielded 427 million hits.
大意: 英國小說家Ian Fleming 1964年在其007系列小說(驚! 就是大家熟知的007)
最早用了Ninja這個詞, 而大量流行起來則是1980 Eric Lustbader 的小說The Ninja
及隔年的同名電影之後的事
傳統日本好像都是叫Shinobi 忍び
Ninja 忍者 這個詞 可能混合了至少日中英三種文化的產物吧
我的認知是 如果你穿越到日本古代想要雇用殺手 你要講 Shinobi 仲介才聽得懂
Ninja 則是影視閱讀娛樂產業創的詞