Jan Novak for our friends the Czechs.
Given that Martin (or a close variant) is a common name in English, Franch, Spanish, and perhaps German speaking countries, could _________ Martin be an average guy name for any “Westerner”?
I think some names such as Daniel and David are identical in all of these languages too, but I am not sure if they are equally common.
Well the most common Irish surname is Murphy and most popular boys name at the moment is Jack (not very Irish) but you could take the most popular boy’s name of 1998 which was Conor to get Conor Murphy.
FWIW when I hear the name John Smith I automatically think of an Englishman rather than an American.
OK to play the game - Germans - my WAG for a common name would be Hans Schmidt.
Otto Normalverbraucher is “the man in the street” in Germany, but for purposes of form samples etc. the canonical name has become Erika Mustermann (male variant: Hans Mustermann). Mustermann = Sampleman, a fairly rare name (the German telephone database has only 41 subscribers of that name) which was used for a sample of the new ID card in 1991 government publicity and has since been widely used (although the federal goverment has changed to Desiré Jeannette Mustermann a few years ago to reflect changed naming patterns in the last few decades.)
If you see a page about a person named Erika, Desiré Jeannette, Hans, or Erich Mustermann on the Web, most probably it was a sample personal page that a web administrator put up for internal demonstration purposes and forgot fo hide from search engine spiders. Like this Hans Mustermann campaign web site that Germany’s Free Democratic Party’s web designers apparently put up to demonstrate the campaign web site template. Or this sample staff member page (Prof. Erika Mustermann, retired) of an academic institution.
Interesting! Here it would be Joao de Silva, although also lots of dos Santos too. To build on your forestry theme for the benefit of the passing traffic “de Olivera” originates from Olive (as in the tree) as well as being the surname of the first Prime Minister of Eire.
Even if not particularly common, teh Arabid surname Haddad and its variants can be translated as “Smith”.
IIRC, Yahya (sp?) is the Arabic version of “John”.
dorfl, wasn’t Otto Normalverbraucher in “Irgendwo in Berlin” [somewhere in Berlin]?
PookahMacPhellimey hehehehe at the Limburgse Jimi Hendrix. 
[The old country is fine. Still the same number of curmudgeons in it] 
Goa (in India), which used to be a Portugese colony until the late 1960s, still has a vibrant Portuguese culture, and a large number of Goanese have Portugese last names… De Silva, De Cruz, De Cuhna, etc… First names though reflect the English influence.
From my experience the most common Irish male name is probably John O’Shea, I have 3 friends named that, and have treated innumerable patients named it.
Is Fatima a common name for a woman or am I just imagining it? Also I met a fair few Hassan’s in Egypt… and a couple of Amin’s
In Finland, the surname would definitely be ‘Virtanen’. There’s a popular comic in Finland called “B. Virtanen”, about a small, throughoutly average man who goes on through his life being tyrannized by various bosses at his drab office job and by his horrible hag of a wife and preteen-hooligan son at home. (One wonders whether the popularity of this comic says something about Finns. Probably yes, considering another popular comic is about a woman living in a relationship with an anthropomorphic pig). IIRC, “Virtanen” in his name refers to the fact that he’s the quintessential could-be-anybody everyman, while “B” (NOT a letter that would start, or even appear, in any Finnish name) refers to the fact that his life is, basically, B-class.
For the first name, it would probably be “Matti” or “Ville” - “Juhani” and various others are more popular, but for some reason, I’d bet most people would say “Matti” or “Ville” first if asked about a typical Finnish name.
“Matti Meikalainen” is more like John Q. Public - “Meikalainen” having the rough meaning of “One-of-us”.
Agreed–We have 2 Jose Rodriguez(s), 1 Jose Luis Rodriguez and 2 Joe or Joey Rodriguez(s) in my company’s email directory. Granted, it’s a big company, and they may not all be Mexican, but at least 2 of them are.
I had thought it would be something like Jacob benIsaac.
Or maybe Yeshua benYosef G
Seriously, I read in a discussion about Aaron Kominski as Jack the Ripper that the Scotland Yard suspect listed as David Cohen may have been Kominski as D.C. really was the Yard’s Jewish equivalent of John Doe.
Most popular surname in Hebrew - definitely Cohen. As I mentioned in my first post, it’s very hard to pinpoint a “most popular” Given Name - Jacob and David could be in the running, too (although all of the “traditional” Jewish names seem to be somewhat less common in Israel nowadays - I don’t think there’s a single Avraham, Yitzhaq, Yaaqov or David in any of my children’s school classes!)
Surely you mean Yehoshua Bar-Yosef ;j (I’ve always wanted to use this in context!) The guy spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew, in everyday life!
Incidentally, should Yehoshua be considered as the very first “Christian Name”?
Could well be - I’ve already said that there isn’t really a “most popular” first name in Hebrew. They certainly got the “Cohen” part right!
Dani
You mean Eamon de Valera?
…and if they are Mexican, I would be willing to bet that one of them, if not all (!), is married to a Maria.
This goes for Portugal too, though I would probably drop the da and maybe replace José with António.
Get your Yahyas out.
BehindtheName.com, my favorite names site, agrees with your spelling. They add that Muhammad is the most common Arabic name, and that “This name, with all of its variants, is perhaps the most popular in the world.” This page over here suggests that the most common Arabic name is Ali.
So that gives us… Muhammad Ali. Hmm. That name sorta feels taken, maybe we need a replacement. How’s Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? 