> Any proposed link between any antichrists and the book of Revelation was created in the past few hundred years.

Actually, the idea of an end times Antichrist has been around for much of Christianity's history.

Irenaeus of Lyon synthesized the beast of Revelation (which is what most people conflate with "The Antichrist"), Daniel's imagery, and Paul's "man of lawlessness" (2 Thess. 2) into a composite end-times figure back around 180 CE in his work "Against Heresies". Additionally, Hippolytus of Rome also wrote an entire treatise, "On Christ and Antichrist", back in early 200 CE, that also explored that relevant symbolism in the Old and New Testaments.

For context, both Irenaeus and Hippolytus are considered among the most important of the early Church Fathers.