New York village established 1645 by English Puritans (now a neighborhood in Queens), an English corruption of Dutch Vlissingen, name of Dutch town where the Puritans had taken refuge, literally "flowing" (so called for its location on an estuary of the West Scheldt), and thus perhaps distantly related to flush (v.1).

used allusively from 1985, in reference to John Rambo, hero of Canadian-American author David Morrell's novel "First Blood" (1972), popularized as portrayed by Sylvester Stallone in the Hollywood movie version (1982), a U.S. Vietnam veteran, "macho and self-sufficient, and bent on violent retribution" [OED]. The family name is an old one in New Jersey and Pennsylvania (where Morrell supposedly first heard it), originally Swedish, sometimes said to represent Swedish place name Ramberget, or to be from French Huguenots who took refuge in Sweden.