# What if I happen to be called John Doe and I'm at the hospital? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 28, 2003, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992 "2003-05-28T12:19:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DrLiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90ced4/32.png) [@DrLiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrLiver)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/1 "2003-05-28T12:19:52Z")
I think that hospitals and police use John Doe as a name for any unedentified person (corpse); say my name is John Doe, what sorts of complications could arise at the hospitals, police station etc? I’m not a John Doe, but for some mysterious reason I’m very curious about those kind of useless things…:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/2 "2003-05-28T12:24:46Z")
Hospitals sometimes have more than one John Doe, so you have niot stumbled uponh anything new. It’s a reference by name for making it ‘personal’ and giving the person a human touch ID, but the ID doesn’t end their. You have room numbers, patient ID numbers, blood types, and other identifying information. ---
**Author:** ![DrLiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90ced4/32.png) [@DrLiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrLiver)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/3 "2003-05-28T12:34:47Z")
hhmm… that’s very efficient…very good too…but somewhat deceieving… Would it be easier for a John Doe to get a “real” death certificate even though he’s not dead (than for another person)… And I’ll also further hijack my own thread by asking; what exactly is a death certificate? do they give you a paper saying “Congratulations MR Soandso is offically Dead On the date of suchandsuch Of natural cause or other Singed Mr Doctor something” ?? ---
**Author:** ![NutMagnet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@NutMagnet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NutMagnet)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/4 "2003-05-28T12:54:30Z")
**DrLiver** > [@](#): > > “Congratulations > MR Soandso is offically Dead > On the date of suchandsuch > Of natural cause or other > Singed Mr Doctor something” Yes. That’s the wording exactly. But only If “Mr. Dr. Something” has actually **singed** you to death. 🙂 there is an actual Death Certificate. It does describe who the dead guy is, what he died of, and is signed by an MD, ME, or Coroner etc. that it is so. You need one to execute someone’s estate, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Philster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/13edae/32.png) [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/5 "2003-05-28T13:02:20Z")
How would it be easy to get a death certificate on a John Doe? Generally, you need a dead body that is not claimed by anyone before it’s John Doe status. If you try to make someone you know a John Doe by hiding the fact that you know him, then even the most basic police questioning (tends to happen around dead people) will reveal something fishy. ---
**Author:** ![DrLiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90ced4/32.png) [@DrLiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrLiver)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/6 "2003-05-28T13:08:36Z")
What I wanted to ask about if its easier for a John Doe to get a real-fake deaht certificate is, say I steal a death certificate from an unidentified body and it says “John Doe”…it would be easier… anyhow that’s not important anymore, this is stupid question anyhow - someone can just close this thread… ---
**Author:** ![critter42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@critter42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/critter42)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/7 "2003-05-28T14:46:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Philster \* > \*\*How would it be easy to get a death certificate on a John Doe? > > Generally, you need a dead body that is not claimed by anyone before it’s John Doe status. > > If you try to make someone you know a John Doe by hiding the fact that you know him, then even the most basic police questioning (tends to happen around dead people) will reveal something fishy. \*\* **Philster** , I think you misunderstood the OP. He was asking about the complications that might arise for some poor sod whose parents (Mr. and Mrs. Doe) had the unmitigated bad taste (thinking it was ‘cute’ 🙂 ) to name their son John. You know along the lines of: “I need to check on the status of a patient of yours - his name is John Doe” “Would that be John Doe 1, 2, or 3” “No, just John Doe” “We have several John Doe’s listed. If you know the patient, can you give me his real name” “John Doe” “…click”, That sort of thing. I would prefer not to have this thread closed - I have become curious now too, what kind of headaches this poor guy might encounter. **DrLiver** , my gramma taught me that “the only stupid questions are those that go unasked”. I personally found your question an intriguing one, not stupid at all. critter42 ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/8 "2003-05-28T15:12:33Z")
Middle initial? ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/9 "2003-05-28T16:40:54Z")
To answer the OP, a real death certificate has information on it that you would know regarding an identified person - date of birth, for instance. If I recall correctly, I **think** it also has information about the specific corpse, like weight, hair/eye color, etc. Thus being named “John Doe” wouldn’t make it any easier to, say, fake your death, as you’d need a death certificate that matched your age and weight. I’d also assume that death certificates on unknown persons would list approximate age rather than the date of birth, and that’s no good for the theoretical John Doe who wishes to convince people that he is really dead. (There was an article in the paper today that mentioned the death of someone who’d attempted to fake his death previously. He lured a drifter to his home and strangled the guy, but the medical examiner was quick to note that the corpse was of a 175 lb man, while the supposed dead man had weighed over 400 lbs last time any witnesses saw him. The death happened right before a hearing on the guy’s case, and the judge at the hearing half-joked that he wanted to see a death certificate first. 😉 ) Information other than name is used in categorizing patients, as others have mentioned - date of birth and Social Security Number are ones that might be known by concerned friends/relatives. I would bet that asking about “John Doe” might produce some confusion at first, but if you explained the situation and provided a birth date, I bet it wouldn’t be too difficult to deal with. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/10 "2003-05-28T16:45:10Z")
Addendum: Here’s the[death certificate](http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/mcveighcert1.shtml) for Timothy McVeigh, from the archives at The Smoking Gun. No eye color, etc., but you can see that a lot of specific info is included. A death certificate for an unknown person would look a lot different from one for a known person as a result (WAG: estimated age, lots of blanks or “unknown” notations). ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/11 "2003-05-28T19:05:25Z")
No state-issued death certificate that I’ve ever seen has contained items of personal description (height, weight, eye color, etc.) other than age and sometimes race. A medical examiner’s report, on the other hand, would have such information about the decedent. However, even with unknown decedents a medical examination is not routine if the cause of death is known to an attending physician. The 1930 U.S. census shows 267 persons with the name John Doe. But an alarming number of them — more than half — were inmates in mental institutions or prisons, which suggests that “John Doe” was used being used as a pseudonym for the living, too. A more accurate count may be from the Social Security Death Index, which shows that 36 adults in the U.S. named John Doe died between 1962 and 2003, fewer than one per year. ---
**Author:** ![DrLiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90ced4/32.png) [@DrLiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrLiver)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/12 "2003-05-29T02:04:26Z")
**critter42** if your gramma says so, then I retract what I said in my previous post and I would like to further hijack my post with a last, little question: Who gets the death certificate? Is there a central death certificate library place or do they send it to a family member? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/13 "2003-05-29T02:21:02Z")
In most states, copies of the death certificate go on file in at least two offices: the county’s vital records office (usually located in the county courthouse) and the state’s vital records office (usually in the capital city). Members of the immediate family can order certified copies of the death certificate from either of those offices to help settle the decedent’s estate. Typically, ten or more copies are necessary, since each financial institution, plus your local probate office and the Social Security Administration, will need proof of death. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/14 "2003-05-29T02:26:33Z")
In most states, copies of the death certificate go on file in at least two offices: the county’s vital records office (usually located in the county courthouse) and the state’s vital records office (usually in the capital city). Members of the immediate family can order certified copies of the death certificate from either of those offices to help settle the decedent’s estate. Typically, ten or more copies are necessary, since each financial institution, plus your local probate office and the Social Security Administration, will need proof of death. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2003, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-i-happen-to-be-called-john-doe-and-im-at-the-hospital/177992/15 "2003-05-29T02:32:28Z")
In most states, copies of the death certificate go on file in at least two offices: the county’s vital records office (usually located in the county courthouse) and the state’s vital records office (usually in the capital city). Members of the immediate family can order certified copies of the death certificate from either of those offices to help settle the decedent’s estate. Typically, ten or more copies are necessary, since each financial institution, plus your local probate office and the Social Security Administration, will need proof of death.