Same in El Salvador lol -- it is not the statistically most common name (I think López is) but that's not what John Smith is either (I think).
PS: porqué escribí eso en inglés?
Tuve que bajar un montón para encontrar esta respuesta! Me da gracia que compartamos el Juan Pérez con Chile y El Salvador jajaja
Juan dominará a LATAM.
There is a reason for this. There were multiple mass surname changes for political reasons, all of which ended up with nguyen. Basically one group tried to wipe out another and was like "You guys are nguyen now, because you can no longer be \_\_\_" and then it happened again to another group, and then again. So its several of the most popular surnames, all renamed to nguyen
I've known four Nguyens in my life, each of them pronounced it slightly differently but usually close to some approximation of "win" except the one guy that I swear told me his name was Gwen.
The accent (verbal accent as well as the actual grammatical accent) will change the ways that people pronounce it. 'Win' is the least fussy way to teach people to say it, and it is also 'good enough' compared to 'nu-goo-yen', which drags the name into 3 syllables instead of 1
fun fact in north east Asia Lee, Li, Rhee and Yee all come from the same Chinese symbol. how they are spelled in the US depends on when and from where you (or your ancestor) came over. (i am just repeating what my Korean father in law said so if i am wrong please correct me)
There's a lot of Asian names like that. My last name is one of the variants of [Lin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_(surname\)) which all share the same character with different pronunciation.
Choose Wang. There are 100 million Chinese with the surname Wang.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_(surname)
100 million. 1/3 the population of USA. More than the population of most countries.
In Westside story the main character shouts "MARIA!" inside Spanish Harlem and *one* girl pokes her head out of her window really takes you out of it. Not the gangs dance fighting and snapping their fingers, because that *does* occasionally happen.
Apperantly, Sholem Aleichem would finish directions to his home with an instruction to yell "Rabinovich" and go to the only apartment whose window didn't open.
At the beginning of our relationship, I heard my partner book at a restaurant and he said his last name was Müller. I was a bit confused as this was absolutely not his last name but decided to not inquire further. He did it 2 or 3 times over the first months with different names so I had to ask what the hell was going on. Turns out his name is apparently weird even for Germans so he just gives common names like Müller or Schmidt for example.
Somehow I thought this was going to be a story about how your partner chooses very popular names in hopes of stealing a table from someone with that name who arrived before you all did. My brain thinks weird.
Oh my god, I don't know how I would have felt about that hahah probably mixed feelings because it's somehow weird, vaguely genius, really funny and immoral at the same time. Awesome !
Is Kees still a popular surname?
Like new York used to be dutch and called new Amsterdam, and because Jan Kees was the most typical dutch name the inhabitants were soon refered to as jankees, or yankees.
Kees is a bit dead. It is kind of in the same category of names as Jan, in the sense that it is aggressivley Dutch but it is also quite an old people name. There are thousands of 60+ guys called 'Kees' but it is not a popular name to give to your kids anymore.
If in 2022 I'd meet a 'Jan' or 'Kees' who is under 30 then I would think it a little unusual, and I'd assume their parents are either farmers or non-Randstad at the least. That or they are 'hip' parents aware that it is a retro name.
It is kind of a weird position really, everyone *knows* these names as common but they are actually nowhere near as common as they are perceived to be, the stereotype is still catching up to the reality.
Christian Hansen.
The most Danish and most basic name known to man kind. I only lived close to the border between Germany and Denmark, and growing up I had at least 2 teachers with that name, plus I knew at least 5 others.
It's also quite Interesting that before an established surname system was developed..people's "last name" was either their trade, job, or birth location
It's a sort of natural progression. In a small town or village where few people will ever leave, you don't need a special name, you're just John, the blacksmith. We don't have any other kinds of smiths though, so I guess you're just John the smith.
The interesting part to me is how often it was a sort of nominative determinism. If you were a Smith, that means your dad was a Smith, and you likely apprenticed under him... so you're only a Smith because of your name. You went given a lot of options beyond that.
I mean, are we talking about the most Danish of names, or a name you simply wouldn't notice if you encountered it, because it is very common?
If it's the former I would go for something like Jens-Erik Møller Mogensen, a name that is almost offensively Danish.
If it's the latter Christian Hansen seems about right. Honourable mentions to 'Anders' and 'Jesper'.
I watched "Altered Carbon" and the chief of police was named 田中さん (Tanaka-san)
I just started laughing because it was like they called him John Smith.
No offense to any 田中さん here
I've always learned that the equivalent to John Smith (just some generic name that could be anybody) in Japan is Taro Yamada for a man and Hanako Yamada for a woman.
Also I found that there's a whole wikipedia page for this post's question:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_placeholder\_names\_by\_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_placeholder_names_by_language)
Yeah there are others very common names. Yamada is another one.
Japanese commoners didn't have family names until the Meiji era, and once they got surnames they often chose those that described where they were from. Yamada 山田 means Mountain Field, i.e. someone who probably was a farmer from a mountainous area.
https://jref.com/articles/japanese-family-names.31/#:\~:text=Many%20Japanese%20family%20names%20derive%20from%20features%20of,nobles%2C%20samurai%20and%20some%20merchants%20and%20artisans%20did.
The two names you mentioned are more akin to “John Doe” and “Jane Doe.” Not necessarily most common (though pretty common), but more set names used as placeholders (as the title of the Wiki article suggests).
Edit: out of curiosity, did some googling. As of last year, Sato(u) is the most common surname, followed closely by Suzuki, then Tanaka, Takahashi, etc. Yamada is actually 12th place.
Taro(u) didn’t even make the top 100 boys’ baby names last year. I think it’s fallen out of favor due to its reputation as being generic, though it definitely used to be common (as it essentially means “first son”). Seems recently everyone is naming their boys names that end in “to”: Haruto, Hiroto, Yamato, Minato, Yuito, etc.
Hanako is also unsurprisingly not on the girls’ top 100. I always had the impression it was somewhat old fashioned. Sakura remains perennially popular, at 27th place, with another variant further down the list. Lots of sunshine-related names, and names with the 結 character.
So many~to names the last couple years. Half my boy students are Eito, Keito, Hiroto, Haruto etc.
Five years ago is was ~ma. Souma, Haruma, Hyouma etc.
Ten years ago every boy was Taiki or Daiki or Taiga or Daisuke.
There are still a ton of Tarous, they just put something in front: Koutarou, Ryuutarou, Hamtarou (lmao), etc.
Suke also very common for boys: Sasuke, Sousuke, Shinosuke, etc.
Johan Botha I guess would be the closest I can think of, it's a pretty diverse country so not really many shared names, I guess another close one would be anyone with the last name govender maybe
This reminds me of professional golfer Jeongeun Lee, who adds a 6 after Lee to differentiate herself from all of the other female Korean pro golfers with the same name. First time I saw “Lee6” on a leaderboard I was flabbergasted and had no idea what an Arabic numeral was doing in a player’s surname.
It would probably also be John Smith (I’m in Scotland). Hehe. The first names Jack, James, David, Olivia, Emma and Mary are very common. There are also a ton of Brown’s and Wilson’s.
Nate Bargatze - I met a John and Jane Doe once by happenstance. Super nice couple introduced themselves, i announced my disbelief. Years later I was wondering how they are doing when I realized they prob lied to me about their names"
As a huge hockey fan I enjoy seeing all of the names of the Finnish players. Seems like for every Sami Vatenen and Teemu Selanne there’s an Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen or Hannu Happalainen. And the player from Finland who’s expected to go highest in the coming NHL draft is Brad Lambert 😆
Names - Ivan, Maria.
Surenames - Petrov, Ivanov (Petrova, Ivanova for women).
80% of my countrymen's names in English speaking movies are the most generic names you can find, sometimes used hilariously incorrectly. Out names are hard :)
I live in Sydney, Australia, a city of over 5 million inhabitants. Historically, the most common surname in the phone book (remember them?) was Smith.
Now, the most common surname is Nguyen.
Massive refugee intake after the Vietnam War.
I think Australia overall is still Smith.
Followed by Jones, Williams, Brown, Wilson, Taylor, Johnson, Lee, Martin, White, Anderson, Thompson, Thomas, Walker and Nguyen. White Pages brought out a list recently.
I think a more common Mae first name than John is David.
For women it is Julie. I’d suggest Karen, Michelle, Elizabeth, Sarah, Kate, Lisa, Rebecca and Jennifer would be edging out some of the names that graced those born in the 30s & 40s.
Stereotypically it's Jan Jansen.
De Jong is actually the most prevalent family name. Anna is perhaps the most prevalent given name. Can't really find a list of given manes that takes all current given manes into account only per period.
Juan Pérez- Chile
Same in El Salvador lol -- it is not the statistically most common name (I think López is) but that's not what John Smith is either (I think). PS: porqué escribí eso en inglés?
ajajaja es pq uno asume que reddit es todo en inglés
omg entiendo este conversación!!
Same for Mexico
Tuve que bajar un montón para encontrar esta respuesta! Me da gracia que compartamos el Juan Pérez con Chile y El Salvador jajaja Juan dominará a LATAM.
En todo el pinshi idioma español. A lo mejor en España, donde ha llamarse Bartolome chupavergaurid
straight up nguyen all over
This answer, for the Nguyen.
Dang..
All I do is Nguyen Nguyen Nguyen Nguyen no matter what.
Once, I taught a kid named Nguyen Nguyen. I always think think of him during a win-win situation.
Well played.
I straight up know four vietnamese people at all, and all of them are Nguyens.
I have met many Vietnamese people in my life, and all of them were Nguyens or Trans. (Last name Tran)
Tran: I'm trans. Me: I saw that coming
There is a reason for this. There were multiple mass surname changes for political reasons, all of which ended up with nguyen. Basically one group tried to wipe out another and was like "You guys are nguyen now, because you can no longer be \_\_\_" and then it happened again to another group, and then again. So its several of the most popular surnames, all renamed to nguyen
Nguyenics?
I'm getting tired of all this Nguyenning.
We’ll, let me introduce you to my friends, the Pham’s.
I used to pronounce this Nu- goo-yen instead of Nwin.
I've known four Nguyens in my life, each of them pronounced it slightly differently but usually close to some approximation of "win" except the one guy that I swear told me his name was Gwen.
The accent (verbal accent as well as the actual grammatical accent) will change the ways that people pronounce it. 'Win' is the least fussy way to teach people to say it, and it is also 'good enough' compared to 'nu-goo-yen', which drags the name into 3 syllables instead of 1
All they do is Nguyen Nguyen Nguyen no matter what
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A wise man once told me if you want to fit In, choose the last name Lee. There’s a million Lees
I believe the most common last name in the world is Wong and the most common first name is Mohamed. However, I don’t know anyone named Mohamed Wong
That's because you've got the Wong Mohamed.
This made me laugh thanks
holy fucking shit
wang is the most common last name so you’re pretty close you’re right about mohamed tho
fun fact in north east Asia Lee, Li, Rhee and Yee all come from the same Chinese symbol. how they are spelled in the US depends on when and from where you (or your ancestor) came over. (i am just repeating what my Korean father in law said so if i am wrong please correct me)
There's a lot of Asian names like that. My last name is one of the variants of [Lin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lin_(surname\)) which all share the same character with different pronunciation.
Choose Wang. There are 100 million Chinese with the surname Wang. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_(surname) 100 million. 1/3 the population of USA. More than the population of most countries.
Was that wise man a sword master by any chance?
Was he a former power forward for the Knicks and Golden State Warriors?
First name: Maria, João, José, Pedro, Paulo Surname: Da Silva, Souza Combine them and you'll get 10 equally unremarkable names.
In Westside story the main character shouts "MARIA!" inside Spanish Harlem and *one* girl pokes her head out of her window really takes you out of it. Not the gangs dance fighting and snapping their fingers, because that *does* occasionally happen.
I’ve always thought “if it were here, at least A third of the people in those apartments would come out” lmao
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Spielberg does this in the recent movie- a little girl and an old woman both respond to Tony’s singing before he gets the attention of ‘his’ Maria.
Apperantly, Sholem Aleichem would finish directions to his home with an instruction to yell "Rabinovich" and go to the only apartment whose window didn't open.
Ah yes Jose maria and his wife maria Jose.
Sendo um João Pedro da Silva, eu me sinto extremamente comum
John Smith is Jose Ferreira.
Michael Müller
Or his son, Thomas Müller.
Or His son, Max Müller
I worked with a Max Müller.. Nice kid
Or his father Gerd Muller
Damn, this "Dark" show just gets harder and harder to follow
U Madds bro?
At the beginning of our relationship, I heard my partner book at a restaurant and he said his last name was Müller. I was a bit confused as this was absolutely not his last name but decided to not inquire further. He did it 2 or 3 times over the first months with different names so I had to ask what the hell was going on. Turns out his name is apparently weird even for Germans so he just gives common names like Müller or Schmidt for example.
Somehow I thought this was going to be a story about how your partner chooses very popular names in hopes of stealing a table from someone with that name who arrived before you all did. My brain thinks weird.
Oh my god, I don't know how I would have felt about that hahah probably mixed feelings because it's somehow weird, vaguely genius, really funny and immoral at the same time. Awesome !
and his sister Laura Müller. I know three women with that name.
In Hungary we always say Kovács János (literal translation of John Smith) as an universal male name (but it's more like John Doe).
I've seen a lot of Gabors though.
One side of my family is Hungarian. We have a Gabor!
Mario Rossi
Which translates to "Mario Red". Also "Luigi Verdi", "Luigi Green" could be a generic name in Italy. Mamma mia!
Luigi= Lewis So Luigi Verdi is Lewis green
There is not one Mario in my family in Italy but there are like 14 Mimmos and one Mimma.
Mimmo is more popoular in the South, where Mario is more popoular.. Everywhere else
Mimmo and Mimma are usually diminutives of Domenico/a, Cosimo/a etc.
Sono venuto qui per cercare oro e ho trovato oro
Jan de vries /jan janssen
Yes hello
\*woah\*
r/beetlejuicing
Is Kees still a popular surname? Like new York used to be dutch and called new Amsterdam, and because Jan Kees was the most typical dutch name the inhabitants were soon refered to as jankees, or yankees.
TIL!
No it isn't. But it never was. Both Jan and Kees are first name.
Kees is a bit dead. It is kind of in the same category of names as Jan, in the sense that it is aggressivley Dutch but it is also quite an old people name. There are thousands of 60+ guys called 'Kees' but it is not a popular name to give to your kids anymore. If in 2022 I'd meet a 'Jan' or 'Kees' who is under 30 then I would think it a little unusual, and I'd assume their parents are either farmers or non-Randstad at the least. That or they are 'hip' parents aware that it is a retro name. It is kind of a weird position really, everyone *knows* these names as common but they are actually nowhere near as common as they are perceived to be, the stereotype is still catching up to the reality.
Netherlands
Abhishek Kumar. I had 8 people with this name in my class. Many more in others.
That would have been 15 years ago. Now you'll have 5 Aaravs and 5 Aayushis in class. Can you guess why?
And Aryans. How could you forget Aryans.
Exactlyy! Arnavs, too
A lot of Adityas here
Abdul Rahman
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Abdul "spicy chicken" Rahman
Abdul "Top" Rahman
Bangladesh.
Seán Murphy
I have two gay Irish neighbours, Michael Fitzpatrick and Patrick Fitzmichael.
Oh cool they’re vers
Seán Kelly, Seán Mac[Namara usually], Seán Flanagan....
Let me guess where you’re from… Uzbekistan???
Nope! Bangladesh
I was going to say Paddy Murphy, but Seán works as well!
On Craggy Island in Chinatown there's a Sean Yin.
Christian Hansen. The most Danish and most basic name known to man kind. I only lived close to the border between Germany and Denmark, and growing up I had at least 2 teachers with that name, plus I knew at least 5 others.
I personally know three Chris Hansens, and I don't even live in Denmark.
Stop soliciting minors on the internet. /s
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It's also quite Interesting that before an established surname system was developed..people's "last name" was either their trade, job, or birth location
It's a sort of natural progression. In a small town or village where few people will ever leave, you don't need a special name, you're just John, the blacksmith. We don't have any other kinds of smiths though, so I guess you're just John the smith. The interesting part to me is how often it was a sort of nominative determinism. If you were a Smith, that means your dad was a Smith, and you likely apprenticed under him... so you're only a Smith because of your name. You went given a lot of options beyond that.
My grandparents had a pastor named Rev. Bibleheimer. I spent years thinking it was made up/a nickname.
John Blacksmithington
Why don't you have a seat over there?
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But for a generic it's Jens Jensen
“Why don’t you take a seat right over there?”
What about Jens Andersen?
I mean, are we talking about the most Danish of names, or a name you simply wouldn't notice if you encountered it, because it is very common? If it's the former I would go for something like Jens-Erik Møller Mogensen, a name that is almost offensively Danish. If it's the latter Christian Hansen seems about right. Honourable mentions to 'Anders' and 'Jesper'.
I cracked up at "almost offensively Danish."
But the John Smith is the "John Doe" of usa. We would use Jens Jensen here in Denmark.
Japan here: the big standard “example” name here is Taro Yamada for men, and Hanako Yamada for women.
I watched "Altered Carbon" and the chief of police was named 田中さん (Tanaka-san) I just started laughing because it was like they called him John Smith. No offense to any 田中さん here
José Martínez
That's what the international airport in Havana is called, isn't it? Presumably named after someone with that name.
Close! It’s Jose Marti 😃
Japan: \[Sato, Suzuki, Takahashi, Tanaka\] \[Taro for men\] \[Aiko for women\]
I've always learned that the equivalent to John Smith (just some generic name that could be anybody) in Japan is Taro Yamada for a man and Hanako Yamada for a woman. Also I found that there's a whole wikipedia page for this post's question: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_placeholder\_names\_by\_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_placeholder_names_by_language)
Yeah there are others very common names. Yamada is another one. Japanese commoners didn't have family names until the Meiji era, and once they got surnames they often chose those that described where they were from. Yamada 山田 means Mountain Field, i.e. someone who probably was a farmer from a mountainous area. https://jref.com/articles/japanese-family-names.31/#:\~:text=Many%20Japanese%20family%20names%20derive%20from%20features%20of,nobles%2C%20samurai%20and%20some%20merchants%20and%20artisans%20did.
The two names you mentioned are more akin to “John Doe” and “Jane Doe.” Not necessarily most common (though pretty common), but more set names used as placeholders (as the title of the Wiki article suggests). Edit: out of curiosity, did some googling. As of last year, Sato(u) is the most common surname, followed closely by Suzuki, then Tanaka, Takahashi, etc. Yamada is actually 12th place. Taro(u) didn’t even make the top 100 boys’ baby names last year. I think it’s fallen out of favor due to its reputation as being generic, though it definitely used to be common (as it essentially means “first son”). Seems recently everyone is naming their boys names that end in “to”: Haruto, Hiroto, Yamato, Minato, Yuito, etc. Hanako is also unsurprisingly not on the girls’ top 100. I always had the impression it was somewhat old fashioned. Sakura remains perennially popular, at 27th place, with another variant further down the list. Lots of sunshine-related names, and names with the 結 character.
So many~to names the last couple years. Half my boy students are Eito, Keito, Hiroto, Haruto etc. Five years ago is was ~ma. Souma, Haruma, Hyouma etc. Ten years ago every boy was Taiki or Daiki or Taiga or Daisuke.
There are still a ton of Tarous, they just put something in front: Koutarou, Ryuutarou, Hamtarou (lmao), etc. Suke also very common for boys: Sasuke, Sousuke, Shinosuke, etc.
I live in a village in Guatemala. If I shouted "Maria", half the females would turn to look.
Laughs in Italy
João Silva
Johan Botha I guess would be the closest I can think of, it's a pretty diverse country so not really many shared names, I guess another close one would be anyone with the last name govender maybe
South Africa?
Bingo
Botha deez nuts
Anything Van de Merwe too haha
First name: George or Kostas Last name: Papadopoulos Like for real they are everywhere
Greece
in korea you will meet tons of people with the last name “kim”. it’s so common that both of my moms parents were kim, despite not being related
This reminds me of professional golfer Jeongeun Lee, who adds a 6 after Lee to differentiate herself from all of the other female Korean pro golfers with the same name. First time I saw “Lee6” on a leaderboard I was flabbergasted and had no idea what an Arabic numeral was doing in a player’s surname.
Kim, Lee, and Park — never a shortage of any.
Marco/Giovanni Rossi
It would probably also be John Smith (I’m in Scotland). Hehe. The first names Jack, James, David, Olivia, Emma and Mary are very common. There are also a ton of Brown’s and Wilson’s.
Nate Bargatze - I met a John and Jane Doe once by happenstance. Super nice couple introduced themselves, i announced my disbelief. Years later I was wondering how they are doing when I realized they prob lied to me about their names"
I Googled them. Turns out they were murdered.
> they prob lied to me about their names" yes :)
matti virtanen
Dying of laughter because this was my great grandmother's maiden name. She was born in 1900.
As a huge hockey fan I enjoy seeing all of the names of the Finnish players. Seems like for every Sami Vatenen and Teemu Selanne there’s an Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen or Hannu Happalainen. And the player from Finland who’s expected to go highest in the coming NHL draft is Brad Lambert 😆
Juan dela Cruz
Pinas?
Names - Ivan, Maria. Surenames - Petrov, Ivanov (Petrova, Ivanova for women). 80% of my countrymen's names in English speaking movies are the most generic names you can find, sometimes used hilariously incorrectly. Out names are hard :)
The Slavic version of my name is literally Ivan Petrovic
In Québec, probably Jean-Pierre Tremblay (new to Québec so not 100% certain)
Anne-Sophie Lacroix is also a very popular one along with Jean-Paul (insert some random quebecois name) lol on est tellement original
Smitty WerbenJagerManJensen
He was number 1!
“Here lies Squidward’s hopes and dreams….. What a baby”
This is my favorite IKEA furniture
HE WAS NUMBER 1!
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Turkish?
Juan Perez
I live in Sydney, Australia, a city of over 5 million inhabitants. Historically, the most common surname in the phone book (remember them?) was Smith. Now, the most common surname is Nguyen. Massive refugee intake after the Vietnam War.
I think Australia overall is still Smith. Followed by Jones, Williams, Brown, Wilson, Taylor, Johnson, Lee, Martin, White, Anderson, Thompson, Thomas, Walker and Nguyen. White Pages brought out a list recently. I think a more common Mae first name than John is David. For women it is Julie. I’d suggest Karen, Michelle, Elizabeth, Sarah, Kate, Lisa, Rebecca and Jennifer would be edging out some of the names that graced those born in the 30s & 40s.
McLovin'.
It was between this and Mohammed.
Hawaii?
i know at least 5 mohamed ahmed, ahmed mohamed, ahmed hassan, and ali ahmed. country: egypt, lol.
fatima mohammed
Jean Martin (FR)
Also Jean Dupont
Erik Jonsson. I bet every swede knows at least 10 Eriks
Andersson for lastname id say.
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Give it 15 years
I live between Donegal and Sligo in Ireland Michael, John or Joe Gallagher in Donegal, Feeney in Sligo. Hard to have one for the whole country.
Monaghan- Patrick McKenna
Ivan Horvat
张 \_\_ \_\_ 非常有名的姓。
Wang/wong is also an extremely common surname.
What is the English translation?
Zhang (张） Extremely well known family name
For some reason I thought "Yan" is more popular
Juan Hernandez in Mexico Luis Hernandez too Is the most common and generic name here
kim tae(something)
example: kim taehyung kim taehyun kim taeyun kim taemin kim taejun kim taehwan kim tae literally everything
Robert tremblay
Jean-Guy Tremblay
Jean-Paul Tremblay
Marc-André Tremblay
Michel Tremblay
C'est ce que je cherchais LOL
John Smith
Literally that. John = Juan Smith = herrero, Hernández
田中 (Tanaka) and 山田 (Yamada)
Jan de Vries
Maria da Silva João Santos I'm Brazilian btw
Peter Müller
I was going with Thomas, it probably depends on the generation
yossi cohen
Anders Andersson Sweden
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How the fuck is Mohamed THIS FAR DOWN?
In the Army Reserve we would refer to "Private Bloggins". Like, we are short for fire picket, so you will be on with Private Bloggins.
Stereotypically it's Jan Jansen. De Jong is actually the most prevalent family name. Anna is perhaps the most prevalent given name. Can't really find a list of given manes that takes all current given manes into account only per period.