List of English-language placeholder names for people
This is a list of English-language placeholder names for people. A variety of such placeholder names are used in the English language, some with respect to the average unnamed person, and some with specialized meanings such as reference to people in particular professions. Some morphologists "will distinguish between placeholders such as thingummy and placeholder names like John Doe".
Common names
A. N. Other
A. N. Other is used as a placeholder name or, less commonly, used as a pseudonym by a person wishing to remain anonymous. It is most used in the United Kingdom, often written as AN Other. Occasionally it may be abbreviated to ANO, or—in cases where a female name is expected—rendered as Ann Other. These various uses evoke the phrase, "an other", or the word, "another". A similarly constructed placeholder name, U. N. Owen, invokes the word "unknown".As a placeholder name, A. N. Other is commonly employed in lists of cricket players, where players' names are traditionally listed as initials and surname, for players whose names have not yet been announced or are unknown.
The Formula One racing driver Jackie Stewart raced as "A. N. Other" early in his career, supposedly because his mother would worry if she knew he was racing cars.
Alan Smithee
Alan Smithee is an official pseudonym used by film directors who wish to disown a project. Coined by the Directors Guild of America in 1968, it was used until 2000 when it was largely discontinued. It was the sole pseudonym used by DGA members who were, on paper, directors of a film but were dissatisfied with the final product and able to prove to a guild panel that they had not been able to exercise creative control over its filming process. The director was also required by guild rules not to discuss the circumstances leading to the move or even to acknowledge being the project's director. The Alan Smithee credit has also been adopted for direction credit disputes in television, music videos and other media.Alice and Bob
Alice and Bob are fictional characters commonly used as placeholders in discussions about cryptographic systems and protocols, and in other science and engineering literature where there are several participants in a thought experiment. The Alice and Bob characters were created by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman in their 1978 paper "A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-key Cryptosystems". Subsequently, they have become common archetypes in many scientific and engineering fields, such as quantum cryptography, game theory and physics. As the use of Alice and Bob became more widespread, additional characters were added, sometimes each with a particular meaning. These characters do not have to refer to people; they refer to generic agents which might be different computers or even different programs running on a single computer.The names, Alice and Bob, are used for convenience and to aid comprehension. For example, "How can Bob send a private message M to Alice in a public-key cryptosystem?" is believed to be easier to describe and understand than if the hypothetical people were simply named A and B as in "How can B send a private message M to A in a public-key cryptosystem?" The names are conventional, and where relevant may use an alliterative mnemonic such as "Mallory" for "malicious" to associate the name with the typical role of that person. The choice of these names may have come from the film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.
Babyboy and Babygirl
"Babyboy" and "Babygirl" are traditionally used as placeholder names by medical personnel for unnamed or unidentified infants placed in their care, usually with the surname of the mother if known, such as "Babyboy Johnson" or "Babygirl Smith". A 2003 journal article and a 2015 news report noted that hospitals using a standard "Babyboy" or "Babygirl" placeholder for the first names of unidentified newborns has led to mix-ups in identification and medication of the infants. The journal article noted the tendency of temporary names not to be transferred from one data system to another, causing a break in information.Fred Bloggs or Joe Bloggs
"Joe Bloggs" or "Fred Bloggs" are placeholder names used primarily in the United Kingdom to represent an average man.The surnames Blogg/Bloggs/Bloke are believed to have originated in the East Anglian region of Britain, Norfolk or Suffolk, deriving from bloc, "pale, fair, shining".
In The Princeton Review standardised test preparation courses, "Joe Bloggs" represents the average test-taker, and students are trained to identify the "Joe Bloggs answer", or the choice which seems right but may be misleading on harder questions.
"Joe Bloggs" was a brand name for a clothing range, especially baggy jeans, which was closely associated with the Madchester scene of the 1990s.
G.I. Joe
J. Random Hacker
In computer slang, J. Random Hacker is an arbitrary programmer.Usage examples may be found in The Art of Unix Programming by Eric S. Raymond and Beginning Python, by Peter Norton et al. J. Random Hacker is the pen name of the author of a book about ease of malicious hacking, Adventures of a Wi-Fi Pirate. Also, jrandom was an anonymous main developer of I2P software.
Joe Shmoe
Joe Shmoe, meaning "Joe Anybody", or no one in particular, is a commonly used fictional name in American English. Adding a "Shm" to the beginning of a word is meant to diminish, negate, or dismiss an argument. It can also indicate that the speaker is being ironic or sarcastic. This process was adapted in English from the use of the "schm" prefix in Yiddish to dismiss something; as in, "sale, schmale". While "schmo" is thought by some linguists to be a clipping of Yiddish wiktionary:שמאָק#Yiddish "schmuck", that derivation is disputed. The earliest known use of the phrase is the 1940s.John Doe and Jane Doe
John Doe or Jane Doe are multiple-use placeholder names that are used in the British, Canadian, and American legal systems, when the true name of a person is unknown or is being intentionally concealed. In the context of law enforcement in the United States, such names are often used to refer to a corpse whose identity is unknown or cannot be confirmed. These names are also often used to refer to a hypothetical "everyman" in other contexts, like John Q. Public or "Joe Public". There are many variants to the above names, including John /Jane Roe, John/Jane Smith, Joe/Jane Bloggs, and Johnie/Janie Doe or just Baby Doe for children. The gender-neutral A. N. Other is also a placeholder name, mainly used in the United Kingdom.In other English-speaking countries, unique placeholder names, numbers or codenames have become more often used in the context of police investigations. This has included the United Kingdom, where usage of "John Doe" originated during the Middle Ages. However, the legal term John Doe injunction or John Doe order has survived in English law and other legal systems influenced by it. Other names, such as "Joe Bloggs" or "John Smith", have sometimes been informally used as placeholders for an every-man in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand; however such names are seldom used in legal and/or police circles in the same sense as John Doe.
In the legal terminology of Ancient Rome, the names Numerius Negidius and Aulus Agerius were used for hypothetical defendants and plaintiffs. The names "John Doe" and "Richard Roe" were regularly invoked in English legal instruments to satisfy technical requirements governing standing and jurisdiction, beginning perhaps as early as the reign of England's King Edward III. Though the rationale behind the choices of Doe and Roe is unknown, there are many suggested folk etymologies. Other fictitious names for a person involved in litigation in medieval English law were "John Noakes" and "John-a-Stiles". The Oxford English Dictionary states that John Doe is "the name given to the fictitious lessee of the plaintiff, in the mixed action of ejectment, the fictitious defendant being called Richard Roe".
John Q. Public
John Q. Public is a generic name and placeholder name, especially in American English, to denote a hypothetical member of society, deemed a "common man", who is presumed to represent the randomly selected "man on the street". The equivalent term in British English is Joe Public.Various similar terms denote an average Joe, including John Q. Citizen and John Q. Taxpayer, or Jane Q. Public, Jane Q. Citizen, and Jane Q. Taxpayer for a woman. The name John Doe is used in a similar manner. The term Tom, Dick, and Harry is often used to denote multiple hypothetical persons.
Roughly equivalent are the names Joe Blow, Joe Six-pack, and the nowadays rather less popular Joe Doakes and Joe Shmoe, the last of which implies a lower-class citizen. On a higher plane, the Talmudic generic place-marker name Plony is used as a reference in any case which is applicable to anyone – Sanhedrin 43a provides an example.
John, Quisquam, and "The Public" first appeared in the formation of the United States in the late 1700s. Many new Americans of Lutheran German heritage also spoke Latin and used the term "quisquam" with a gender-neutral meaning of "anyone", while in English, John was the generic male term for a person.
The term John Q. Public was the name of a character created by Vaughn Shoemaker, an editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Daily News, in 1922. Jim Lange, the editorial cartoonist for The Oklahoman for 58 years, was closely identified with a version of the John Q. Public character, whom he sometimes also called "Mr. Voter". Lange's version of the character was described as "bespectacled, mustachioed, fedora-wearing". In 2006, the Oklahoma State Senate voted to make this character the "state's official editorial cartoon." 2008 Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin referred to "Joe Sixpack and Hockey moms" during a debate. Presidential candidate John McCain referenced a similar symbol, this time represented by an actual person, saying that Senator Obama's tax plan would hurt Joe the Plumber's bottom line. A fifteen-minute debate on this issue ensued, with both candidates speaking directly to "Joe".