# What are equivalents in other languages to "John Smith"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 23, 2008, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058 "2008-08-23T23:17:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2008, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/1 "2008-08-23T23:17:23Z")
As a incredibly generic-sounding, common seeming name, I mean. ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2008, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/2 "2008-08-23T23:23:55Z")
Yoshiaki Kobayashi ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/3 "2008-08-24T00:51:10Z")
Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/4 "2008-08-24T01:15:21Z")
In France, the “regular guy” would be called Mr Dupont (no particular first name attached, but Jean Dupont would be a good bet). However, Dupont isn’t actually the most common name, it’s only ranks 5th or so. The actual most common name is : -either the variants of “Lefevre” (Lefebure, Lefebvre, Le Febvre, etc…) if you count all variants as only one name. It means…Smith, in old French (\*). -or Martin if you allow only one spelling. (\*) Or rather Thesmith, since an article is generally part of a French name while it’s English equivalent wouldn’t have one. For instance, the French equivalent of Blake would be “Lenoir” (Theblak) and the equivalent of Wood would be “Dubois” (Fromwood) ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/5 "2008-08-24T01:17:56Z")
Muhammed is probably the most common name in the Muslim world. Muhammed bin Muhammed? ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/6 "2008-08-24T01:35:33Z")
There tends to be lots of Wangs in China. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/7 "2008-08-24T01:38:07Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] There tends to be lots of Wangs in China. [/QUOTE] [Jon Arbuckle]I wouldn’t say you’re fat, Garfield, but you have more chins than the Hong Kong phone directory.[/JA] ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/8 "2008-08-24T01:39:17Z")
Hymie Goldberg is probably the most common name in Israel. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/9 "2008-08-24T01:44:11Z")
Guiseppe Verdi is Joseph Green. ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/10 "2008-08-24T01:54:58Z")
Are you asking the most popular names, or “generic person” names like “John Doe” or “John Q. Public”? Brian ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/11 "2008-08-24T02:02:46Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] There tends to be lots of Wangs in China. [/QUOTE] I’ve noticed that there seem to be a very limited pool of family names in China. Am I mistaken? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/12 "2008-08-24T02:18:11Z")
Tyrone Washington? ---
**Author:** ![Driver8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5a626/32.png) [@Driver8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Driver8)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/13 "2008-08-24T02:35:35Z")
In Afrikaans you have “van der Merwe”, which is a pretty common and generic Afrikaans surname. It can be used slightly differently than “John Smith” though: you can use it to represent the Afrikaans ethnicity in jokes, as in “An Irishman, an Englishman and van der Merwe walk into a bar …”. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/14 "2008-08-24T02:39:37Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] There tends to be lots of Wangs in China. [/QUOTE] More Wangs than Beavers at any rate. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/15 "2008-08-24T02:40:10Z")
Germany: Hans Schmidt? ISTR reading that 12% of the Korean population has the family name Kim. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/16 "2008-08-24T02:54:36Z")
[QUOTE=clairobscur] I’ve noticed that there seem to be a very limited pool of family names in China. Am I mistaken? [/QUOTE] Not really. The common expression for “everyman” in Chinese is _lao bai xing_ (the “X” is pronounced as a “sh” sound), which literally means “Old Hundred-Names”, a reference to the idea that there are 100 standard family names among the ethnic Han. There are well over a hundred in reality, but less than a thousand, which when you divide by the 1B+ ethnic Chinese (Han) in China alone, gives you a lot of namespace collisions. There’s actually a [url=[Chinese surname - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_family_names)]Wikipedia article\* on this. Huh! ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/17 "2008-08-24T04:10:18Z")
One assumes that the Vietnamese everyman is a Nguyen, but I don’t know that for sure. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/18 "2008-08-24T04:31:14Z")
[QUOTE=robardin] Not really. […] There are well over a hundred in reality, but less than a thousand, which when you divide by the 1B+ ethnic Chinese (Han) in China alone, gives you a lot of namespace collisions. [/QUOTE] Well… I would say that less than a thousand names is indeed, “a very limited pool”. The article you linked to mention some names being used by around 10% of the population, for instance. Actually, when I said " a very limited pool" I believed it was _less_ limited than that, not more. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/19 "2008-08-24T04:48:47Z")
Well, the LITERAL counterparts to “John Smith” are Spanish: Juan Ferrer or Juan Herrera German: Johannes Schmidt Italian: Giovanni Ferrari or Ferraro (think about it- “Ferrari,” the most prestigious sports car on Earth, means “Smith”) Polish: Jan Kowalski Hungarian (Magya): Jan Kovacs French: Jean Lefebvre Scotland: Ian McGowan Egypt: Yahya Haddad ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2008, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058/20 "2008-08-24T05:05:20Z")
[QUOTE=Argent Towers] Hymie Goldberg is probably the most common name in Israel. [/QUOTE] No. No, it isn’t. (Seriously… Hymie? What is that, Welsh? I’ve never met a Hymie in my life). There’s no stereotypical Israeli name, but if there were one, it would probably be something like Avi Cohen or Yossi Levi. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-equivalents-in-other-languages-to-john-smith/461058.md?page=2)