Explanations/etymology also appreciated!
For Joe Shmoe, it means a very average or below average person. It’s a derivation of the practice of using “shm-” to dismiss something (eg “Practice shmactice. We’re already perfect”).
And “John Smith” is meant to be the most average name or person imaginable, so they have the “most common” (citation needed) first and last name as well.
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Sweden: Svensson, although the most common surname is Andersson.
Specifically for Gothenburg - Glenn “everybody is called Glenn in Gothenburg”, or older use - Kålle (male) and Ada (female). Not used that often.
Flemish talking part of Belgium it is Jan Janssen
spoiled all the fun :)
Some others in the Anglosphere:
Fred Bloggs - no idea where it’s from. Related to “bog” as in bog standard maybe?
Tom, Dick and Harry - is ages old. Even as far back as Shakespeare you can see the triplet evolving. “Tom, Dicke, and Francis” : Henry IV, Part I
I’ve always heard it as Joe Bloggs. The Bloggs bot is believed to be a derivation of bloke
Australian here, Joe Bloggs is very common here.
In Vietnam, I think it’s just most names 😂. Anh Nguyen is probably a good example. Most Vietnamese have the last name Nguyen. The national naming conventions rival that of religious families in the west. Think, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Anh, An, Thanh, and Minh. Women are the same, but named after things considered beautiful, Tuyet, Hong, Pham, Van.
Funny enough, many names aren’t always gendered, so I’ve met a decent amount of couples with the same first and last names. An Thi Nguyen, and An Van Nguyen is a couple that comes to mind. I dont have to worry about doxxing, since I bet that exists over 1000x here.
We have the phrase ‘every Tom, Dick and Harry’ which is like that (UK)
If we’re talking about a generic person it’s usually Mr/s Smith or Mr/s Jones (near Wales)
Do you have “every man and his dog”? (Same meaning as every Tom Dick or Harry")
Yeah we do :)
In Australia we have Joe Bloggs, but it sounds English. Do you have him in England?
Yup, he gets everywhere
In Germany there is “Max Mustermann”, which basically translates to Max Template-man. It’s the default German name used for templates of official documents like passports and such.
Don’t forget Otto Normalverbraucher. Nobody cares about Otto Normalverbraucher.
Or for historical context: “der Deutsche Michel” - “the German Michael “
In German there are also derogatory uses for the forenames “Kevin” and “Otto” for example. Often used to depict not well educated persons that have made extremely stupid decisions/choices.
I think this one is pretty confined to my region (southwestern USA) but we use Otto as the moniker of a generic stupid person too, but probably for a different reason: Otto is Oblivious to the Obvious
As someone with a brother named Kevin, I can confirm he’s doing his part to uphold that depiction.
Don’t forget his wife, Erika Mustermann, geb. (née) Gabler. She’s usually the one used for passports these days. I think there’s a whole Mustermann family living in these templates.
Isn’t it Erika Musterfrau?
Sometimes, but I mostly see her name as Mustermann.
Denmark -
Brian <- A name, but also a slur for people considered ‘hillbilly’. Very frequently used against people who drive cheap tuner hatchbacks. Said cars can be referred to as Brian Cars.
Peter Jensen <- Also a name, but it’s become notorious in Jutland because it feels like everyone is immediately related to someone with this exact first and last name.
I can’t tell you how much I love that Denmark has hillbillys who drive hatchbacks and are called fuckin’ Brian as a slur.
I think more generally people use " hr. og fru Jensen" for a more exact analog of “John/Jane Smith”
But Peter Jensen was the most common name in Denmark for many years, so you’re not completely wrong.
Interesting. In the UK (at least when I was growing up, I haven’t lived there for some time) we called doing up shit cars as Barry-ing them. I know in other parts of the country they used the name Ned or Kev to refer to the people that drove those cars.
so what do you just go ‘du er brian!’ lmfao
Used that way it would be " du er en Brian"
jeg er en sej brian og du er en brain
France: Martin Dupont
But I prefer Dominique Dupont as the first name is both for men and women.
I remember, in this movie Inglorious Basterds, the woman and her family were called
Dupontaswell
Not to stifle further discussion, but this Wikipedia page has a wealth of examples
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_placeholder_names_by_language
I’d attest to that Juan de la Cruz for the most generic Filipino name. de la Cruz still works as a very common surname though I don’t think Juan is still used as much as back then.
And then there are the placeholder phrases, all of which I’ve heard and used.
Uy, ku’nin mo ang ano, yung kuan, iyon! Ay, ano nga ba ang tawag d’yan? Noong ninety kopong-kopong pa namin binili iyan kina ano… Ano nga ba’ng pangalan niya?
Amazing, Ive been learning German for 8 years and just had a great laugh!
The examples for places was interesting.
We have “Eketahuna” (meaning, a small town, middle of nowhere). Eketahuna is a real place ha ha.
We have “Waikikamukau” which is a fictional small town. In bad pakeha pronunciation accent it would sound like “why kick a moo cow”).
(Aotearoa/NZ)
In Norway we have “Ola Nordmann” and “Kari Nordmann”. Ola and Kari are pretty common and generic names. Nordmann literally means Norwegian, but can also be used as a last name.
In US legal cases, “John Doe”, “Jane Roe”, and similar names are used for pseudonymized legal parties.
For instance, the plaintiff in the famous abortion case Roe v. Wade was one Norma McCorvey, identified as “Jane Roe”.
A group of unidentified people appearing as plaintiffs or defendants may be called a group of “Does”, from the name John Doe.
The words doe and roe both refer to deer, which are common wild animals in North America — and as wild animals, represent an arbitrary unspecified person. A doe is a female deer; and while “roe” can also mean fish eggs, roe deer is a common European species of deer.
Good bot
In the UK for a random guy it’s usually Joe Bloggs.
In my country (Spanish speaking) we say “Fulano de tal” Fulano is kinda like a template name nobody really is named like that. “De tal” really means something like “from somewhere”.
We dont out it on the graves, but we use it as slang for situations where we need to refer to someone generic like “imagine a fulano de tal doing xxxxxxxxxxx”.
There are other names like Zutano, Mengano, etc.
Edit: My mom sometimes uses “Miguel Perez”. Those 2 are very common first and last names.
There’s something similar in Italian, Tal dei Tali. Literally something like that one of those ones
Does this came from arabic influence?
To refer someone without a name or generic name we sometime say Fulan bin Fulan meaning someone the son of someone
Wow! It most certainly came from that!
TIL, thanks! (brazilian here).
A lot of Spanish words and culture come from Arabic influences, the iberic peninsula was under control of arabs on the VIII century.
Just checked in a Brazilian Portuguese real made from trees dictionary, indeed comes from arabic (indicated by the “ár fulân”)
In Brazil (Portuguese speaking) we also use Fulano de tal. I didn’t know it was used in other countries!
We also “José Ninguém” and “Maria Ninguém” to mean someone who’s a nobody. It literally means Joseph/Mary (very common names in Brazil) Nobody.
There’s also a name that expresses the same feeling of ‘Joe Schmoe’ in pt-br: ‘Zé Roela’
And to expand on Fulano’s family, we must not forget Beltrano and Ciclano.
And “Zé das Couves” (but this one is used more rarely).
In Poland typically, both officially and informally, one says N. N. (Latin nomen nescio, identity unknown).
What the hell, dude? No one says that. Aren’t you thinking of a John Doe?
Polish “John Smith” would be “Jan Kowalski”. It is used to refer to an average citizen and also literally means “John Smith”.
Fair point, I assumed OP meant people of indeterminate identity. Jan Kowalski is indeed the goto placeholder name.
