Minecraft wiki entry for Illager, associated text: "The Illagers were created because we were talking about having some kind of generic, evil soldier mob in the game - slightly more intelligent than skeletons. It felt natural to have an evil villager. We figured they were ill-willed villagers and so from the beginning they were supposed to be "Ill Villagers". And then Tommaso suggested they should be EVIL-agers - and then we cut it down to just Illagers."-Jens Bergensten-"Meet the Vindicator" – Minecraft.net, June 20, 2017