This thread brings to mind an exchange on a school-based sitcom whose name I don’t recall (I think Martin Mull played the teacher).
Anglo student: “Well, how common is the name Jawaharlal anyway?”
Jawaharlal, a student of Indian descent: “Half the people in India are called Jawaharlal.”
Anglo student: “What are the other half called?”
Jawaharlal: “Mrs. Jawaharlal.”
Is that the Mandarin version?
The most common surnames I come across are probably:
Li, Wang, Hu, Zhang, Chen, Liu, Zhao, Ma
I don’t really know what the most common given names are, but I do know that Ming (the character that means brightness/intelligence/clarity/etc) is used a metric shit-ton, either by itself (e.g. Yao Ming, everyone’s favorite basketball giant), or with another (e.g. Zhao Yiming, my dentist).
Probably not. Names have been used to tell apart people with the same first name, so having a name like “español” that could apply to anybody would defeat the purpose. You would find people called “Lespagnol” in France, on the other hand. Given to people who moved from Spain to France, or maybe simply went once to Spain, making the name unique in the man’s community.
That’s the reason why “Smith” (or its equivalent in other languages) is so common. There normally was only one smith in a village, so it was perfect to identify a particular man (as opposed to “Farmer” for instance). And there were smiths in almost all villages, making the name widespread.
I looked at the part about France, and it’s incorrect. The names mentioned aren’t used in a legal context (except for “X”'. One commonly bring charges “against X”, for instance) They’re the equivalent of John Smith, not of John Doe.
Sorry. Just noticed that despite the article being about “John Doe”, the table actually lists the equivalents of “John Smith”.
FWIW, in this part of the US “L’Italien” is a common name (not like “LeBlanc”, though). The bulk of the ancestral-French population in New England came through Quebec and New Brunswick, FWIW. But I’ve never heard of anybody named “Le Canadien” or “L’Acadien”.
NOT a real name, but if you’re going for “Mr So-and-so” or “John Doe” in Spanish it’s Fulano (with his two friends, Mengano and Perengano) and in Arabic it’s Fulan, Abu-Fulan, al-Fulani, or a combination of the above.
Apparently the Italian for “Tom, Dick, and Harry” is ‘Tizio, Caio e Simpronio.’
I don’t know Italian, though, so I may be wrong about that.
The top ten real existing surnames in Dutch are:
-De Jong (the Young)
-Jansen or Janssen (Johnson)
-De Vries (The Frisian)
-Van de Berg (From the mountain)
-Bakker (Baker)
-Van Dijk (From the Dyke)
-Visser (Fisher)
-Smit (Smith)
-De Boer (Farmer)
Most common usage to indicate “everyman”, is the literal translation of the English “Tom, Dick and Harry” Which would be, in Dutch, “Jan, Piet of Klaas” .
“John Smith” would be " Jan Janssen" but that isn’t used often.
We don’t really have an expression for “John Doe”. “de onbekende” (the unknown) is closest.
“John Q. Publiq” is translated as “Jan Publiek”.
Family names have been fixed long before Canadians moved to the USA, or even French people moved to Canada.
Certainment, monsieur. I should have put a smiley on that.
I have this totally suspect impression that everyone in Iceland has the last name of Guðmundsson or Guðmundsdóttir.
I was discussing this very thing with an African-American roommate I had years ago whose last name was Smith. He said, “That’s true. My great-grandfather was a blacksmith.” He was unsuccessful at keeping a straight face while he said it.
Juan Valdez, Columbain
Jan Kees, New York, pre revolution
John Henry, American
In Czech, Jan Kovář would be a literal “John Smith.”
Hymie Goldberg might be your stereotypical New York Jewish name, but I’d be very surprised to see someone with that name in Israel. And “Avi Cohen” sounds so much better anyway.
Hymie is, I believe, a diminutive form of Hyman. I’ve read on this very board that some Jews in North America tended to give their children names that were relatively common “English” names, but at the same time sounded like traditional Jewish names. In time, these names became associated with Jews as well. Hyman is supposed to sound somewhat like “Chaim”.
However, “Farmer” is a common last name anyway.
Lallemand and Langlois are also relatively common French-Canadian names (very common, in the case of Langlois).
In Quebec, John Smith would probably be called Tremblay, but I’m not sure what his first name would be (presumably Jean). But, as Jragon’s link suggests, “Joe Blow” is used as well to refer to an unknown person.
Paddy Murphy, Paddy Reilly. The literal one would be Sean MacGabhainn.
Is this true in Irish as well (Pádraigín Ó Mhurchú or what have you)?
I do not know Dr. Drake.
Seriously… what is that?, a joke?
I’m sure you know that Hymie is the diminutive of Hyman, a masculine Yiddish name. You want to get out more.