List of placeholder names

Template:Short description This is a list of placeholder names (words that can refer to things, persons, places, numbers and other concepts whose names are temporarily forgotten, irrelevant, unknown or being deliberately withheld in the context in which they are being discussed) in various languages.

Arabic

Arabic uses and ( / ) as placeholder for first names. When a last name is needed, Fulan is repeated, e.g. and ( / ). When a second placeholder name is needed, , ( / ) is used. The use of has been borrowed into Spanish, Portuguese, Persian, Turkish and Malay, as shown below.

Assyrian Neo-Aramaic

Inna ܐܸܢܵܐ or hinna are used for "thingy", "thingamabob", etc. "Ayka dre-li inna?" roughly translates to "Where did I put the thingamabob?"

A verb of the root '-N-L () likely derived from the noun is used to express actions similarly; for verbs that don't immediately come to mind. Though not directly translatable into English, e.g. "Si m’annil-leh" roughly translates to "go do that thing".

Similarly to other Semitic languages, plān (masculine) and plānīthā (feminine) are used for "so-and-so".

Bengali

Bengali uses the universal placeholder . It is generally placed for a noun which cannot be recalled by the speaker at the time of speech. can be used for nouns, adjectives, and verbs (in conjunction with light verbs). can also be a placeholder for people or objects. / / and its female equivalent is a placeholder specific to people. The phrase roughly translates to 'you know' although the literal meaning is 'this that'. To refer to an extended family or generation the phrase is used. It can also mean 'everyone one knows', when used in a context of telling your "caudda gōṣṭhī" something and not keeping a secret.

Danish

Persons

A variety of names can be used as placeholders in common parlance. (Name Nameson) is one example.

In civil law, letters of the alphabet (, , etc.) are used as placeholders for names. In criminal law, is used for the accused (), is a non-law enforcement witness (), is a police officer () and or is the victim (). When there is more than one person in a role, a number is added, e.g. , and , .

Places

Faraway countries are often called , lit. Farawayistan. was first used in 1959 in the weekly periodical as Sonja Rindom's translation of Remotistan. Since 2001, it has been included in .

Backwards places in the countryside are called , lit. The fields of Lars Diarrhea. Similarly , lit. Where the crows turn around may also be used for denoting both a far away and backward place at the same time.

The expression is a placeholder for a place far far away e.g. he kicked the ball .

Egyptian

In Ancient Egypt, the names Hudjefa and Sedjes, literally meaning "erased" and "missing", were used by later Egyptian scribes in kings lists to refer to much older previous pharaohs whose names had by that time been lost.

English

Persons

"John Doe" or "Jane Doe" are often used as placeholder names in law.

Other more common and colloquial versions of names exist, including "Joe Shmoe", "Joe Blow", and "Joe Bloggs". "Tom, Dick and Harry" may be used to refer to a group of nobodies or unknown men. "John Smith" or "Jane Smith" is sometimes used as a placeholder on official documents.

"Alice and Bob" are fictional characters commonly used as placeholders for A and B in discussions about computer systems and protocolsTemplate:Ref RFC, for convenience and to aid comprehension. The names are conventional, and where relevant may use an alliterative mnemonic such as "Mallory" for "malicious" to associate the name with the typical role of that person.

Things

English words to colloquially describe an object whose name the speaker does not know, does not recall, or does not care about include thingy, thingamajig, whatsit, and doohickey.

Galician

Research in Galician language (and Spanish and Portuguese) has classified the toponymic placeholders for faraway locations into four groups:

• related to blasphemies and bad words (, )
• related to religious topics (, , )
• local (Galician) real toponyms (majorly , but also or )
• international toponyms (, , , , )

There is also a humoristic, infrequent element, as in . Some can add more than one element (). It is also noted the prevalence of the adjective ("fifth").

German

Things

German also sports a variety of placeholders; some, as in English, contain the element , (also for towns), , , cognate with English thing. Also, , , suggests a random heap of small items, e.g., an unsorted drawerful of memorabilia or souvenirs. (from ) may be used for any kind of machinery or technical equipment. In a slightly higher register, represents a miscellaneous artifact or utensil, or, in casual German, may also refer to an item of remarkable size. The use of the word (part) is a relatively recent placeholder in German that has gained great popularity since the late 1980s. Initially a very generic term, it has acquired a specific meaning in certain contexts. or (compare , can be loosely translated as 'stuff') usually refers to either a heap of random items that is a nuisance to the speaker, or an uncountable substance or material, often a drug. Finally, , as a placeholder, loosely corresponding to Latin , describes an event or a condition. A generic term used especially when the speaker cannot think of the exact name or number, also used in enumerations analogously to et cetera, is the colloquial or (literally "strike/shoot me dead", to indicate that the speaker's memory fails them).

A generic (and/or inferior) technical device (as opposed to i.e. a brand item) is often called a (after the WWI-era MG 08 machine gun, whose extensive mass production gave it its "generic" character) pronounced in individual numbers .

Persons

File:Personalausweis Vorderseite (2024).png

German identity card of (2024)

The German equivalent to the English John Doe for males and Jane Doe for females would be (Max Exampleperson) and , respectively. For the former, (after the protagonist of the 1948 movie , named in turn after the standard consumer for ration cards) is also widely known. or is often used as a placeholder in jokes for a mischievous little boy (little Johnny), for a person related to something, as in (literally Bicycle Fred, the (unspecified) person who repairs, or is in some way connected to, bicycles). In a similar vein there is (lit. Uncle Fred).

There is also , , or for everybody similar to the English Tom, Dick and Harry if not in a slightly more derogatory way. For many years, Erika Mustermann has been used on the sample picture of German ID cards ("Personalausweis").

Hawaiian Pidgin

Hawaiian Pidgin uses the phrase "da kine" as a placeholder for unspecified people, places and things.

Hebrew

In Hebrew, the word (, meaning 'this') is a placeholder for any noun. The term (, meaning a protuberance, particularly the diacritical mark geresh), a borrowing of Russian (, a diminutive of "forelock") is also used by some speakers.

The most popular personal name placeholders are (, 'whatsisname'), ( = Moses) and (, common diminutive form of Yosef) for first name, and (Cohen, the most common surname in Israel) for last name. However, in ID and credit card samples, the usual name is () for a man and () for a woman (these are actual first and last names) – similar to John and Jane Doe.

The traditional terms are () and its counterpart () (originally mentioned in Ruth 4:1). The combined term () is also in modern official usage; for example, addressing guidelines by Israel postal authorities use as the addressee.

A placeholder for a time in the far past is (), which resembles a year number in the Hebrew calendar. Years of the Hebrew calendar are commonly written in Hebrew numerals. For example, the year Anno Mundi 5726 would be written as , which can be further abbreviated to by omitting the first letter that stands for thousands. What makes unusual is the use of the same letter twice. The word has the gematria of 766 = 400 () + 200 () + 80 () + 80 () + 6 (), but as a numeral, it would usually be written with the shorter sequence 400 () + 300 () + 60 () + 6 ().

Hungarian

Persons

John Smith (US: John Doe) is or (lit. John Smith, Jake Gypsum, or Jakob Gipsch, with surname followed by given name, as normal in Hungarian). However, these names are not used in official reports (for example instead of John/Jane Doe, (unknown male/female) would appear in a police report). Samples for forms, credit cards etc. usually contain the name (John Sample) or (Kate Sample). and , which are actual, though now relatively uncommon, female nicknames, are often used to refer to stereotypically obnoxious and ineffective female bureaucrats. Jokes sometimes refer to an older person named (a quite common male given name), especially if it is implied that he is perverted or has an unusual sexual orientation despite his age.

Places

As for place names, there is or , little villages or boonies far out in the countryside, and or , villages or small towns somewhere in the countryside. A general place reference is the phrase , meaning "behind the back of God", i.e. 'middle of nowhere'.

Icelandic

Persons

In Icelandic, the most common placeholder names are for men and for women. The common or average Icelander is referred to as (lit. average John).

In official texts, the abbreviation (for Latin , "name unknown") may be used. Out of official texts, N.N. is very occasionally (and non-seriously) expanded to Nebúkadnesar Nebúkadnesarson, a name used in the short story "Lilja: Sagan af Nebúkadnesar Nebúkadnesarsyni í lífi og dauða" by Halldór Laxness. It is part of the short-story collection .

Places

The Icelandic version of the Nordic words for faraway places is or . This and the other Nordic counterparts come from Donald Duck comic magazines, in which Donald tends to end up in that country if he doesn't play his cards right.

Time

An unspecified or forgotten date from long time ago is often referred to as (seventeen hundred and sauerkraut).

Indonesian

There is no single name that is widely accepted, but the name of Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, can be found in many articles; it has the advantages of being Javanese (about 45% of the Indonesian population), a single word (see Indonesian name), and well-known.

Other male names: (Indonesian for Johnny), and (widely used in elementary textbooks). (this is Budi's mother) is a common phrase in primary school's standardized reading textbook from 1980s until it was removed in 2014. Popular female placeholder names are , , , .

(male) and (female) are also often found, especially in religious articles (both are derived from Arabic).

(the era when horses bite iron) and indicates a very long time ago.

Irish

Things

Common Irish placeholders for objects include "that thing over there", "that other thing", and "whatever its name is".

Persons

In Irish, the common male name is part of the very old phrase (Tadhg of the market-place) which combines features of the English phrases "average Joe" and "man on the street".

This same placeholder name, transferred to English-language usage and now usually rendered as , became and remains a vitriolic derogatory term for an Irish Catholic and has been used by Unionists in Northern Ireland in such bloodthirsty slogans as "If guns are made for shooting, then skulls are made to crack. You've never seen a better Taig than with a bullet in his back" and "Don't be vague, kill a Taig".

A generic male person can also be called ("Sean O'Something", from "thing") or ("O'Something's son"). Additional persons can be introduced by using other first names and inflecting the family name according to normal Irish conventions for personal names, such as ("Sheila O'Something") for a married or elder woman and for a young or unmarried woman.

, another derogatory placeholder name for an Irish person, lacks the sharpness of and is often used in a jocular context or incorporated into mournful pro-Irish sentiment (e.g. the songs "Poor Paddy on the Railway" and "Paddy's Lament"). By contrast, the term remains a slur in almost every context. (from the name Bridget) is a female equivalent placeholder name for Irish females.

Also note that the Hiberno-English placeholder names , and are long-established idioms derived from the syntax of the Irish language. and are a half-translation of a parallel Irish-language phrase, , literally "my person". This has appeared in songs, an example of which is The Irish Rover in the words .

Korean

File:Koreannamediagram.svg

Hong Gildong, the name of a famous outlaw, has become a placeholder name in Korea.

Japanese

名無しの権兵衛 (lit. Nameless Gonbei) is a common placeholder name for a person whose name is unknown, comparable to John Doe in English. is an old masculine given name that, due to being common in the countryside, came to have connotations of "hillbilly".

On documents or forms requiring a first and last name, 山田 太郎 and 山田 花子 are very commonly used example names for men and women respectively, comparable to John and Jane Smith in English. Both are generic but possible names in Japanese. , whose characters mean 'mountain' and 'rice field' respectively, is not the most common last name in Japan, ranking 12th nationwide in 2024; however, it is a mundane name that appears throughout the country. used to be a common name to give to firstborn sons; though it has declined in popularity, it is still sometimes given to boys. (literally "flower child") was once a common name for girls but is considered old-fashioned nowadays.

Sometimes, will be replaced with the name of a company, place, or a related word; for example, for Toshiba, for Tokyo University (one of its three main campuses is located in Komaba), or on tax return forms ( means "to pay taxes"; it is not a last name). Although and are by far the most popular due to their recognizability as example names, different first names, such as or for men and women respectively, may be used. In recent years, there have also been more unique placeholder names, such as for the city of Nara ( means "deer", which is a symbol of the city) and for the company アルトビジョン Altovision.

When avoiding specifying a person, place or thing, can be used as a modifier to a noun to mean 'unnamed' or 'certain/particular' (e.g. , "a certain politician").

When referring to multiple people or when keeping people anonymous, it is also common to use A, B, C, etc., with or without honorifics. may be added to the end for girls and women (e.g. ).

The symbols 〇〇/○○, read (doubling of meaning 'circle') is a common placeholder when various values are possible in its place or to censor information, similar to underscores, asterisks, <blank> or [redacted] in English. It can be used in place of any noun or adjective. The symbols ××, read , or are also used, although is sometimes avoided due to having sexual connotations. The symbols are usually doubled but can be repeated more times. Placeholder symbols are sometimes read ほにゃらら .

Other filler words include , and . These can be used for a person whose name has been temporarily forgotten (e.g. , roughly "Miss What's-her-name" in the third person). and are sometimes used when purposefully omitting a word from a saying (e.g. instead of , meaning "even monkeys fall from trees"; the word meaning "monkey" has been replaced with meaning "something" or "you-know-what", although "monkey" is still implied).

or for people, or for places and or for things that are unnamed or forgotten are also used.

In computing, starting in the late 1980s, (, no literal meaning) or (doubled) were used much like foo and bar, although their use seems to have decreased in recent years.

Latin

In Latin the word (thing) is used. Some Latin legal writers used the name as a John Doe placeholder name; this name was chosen in part because it shares its initials with the Latin phrases (often abbreviated in manuscripts to ) , "I don't know the name"; , "name to be named" (used when the name of an appointee was as yet unknown); and , "not named".

Formal writing in (especially older) Dutch uses almost as much Latin as the lawyer's English, and, for instance, was and is commonly used as a "John Doe" placeholder in class schedules, grant proposals, etc.

Emperor Justinian's codification of Roman law follows the custom of using and as names for Roman citizens, and and as names for slaves.

Latvian

Sample Latvian identity cards contain the following sample names:

• Māra Paraudziņa (Mara Example) for women
• Andris Paraudziņš (Andris Example) for men

Lojban

The constructed language Lojban uses the series (namely , , , , ), (namely , , , , ) and (namely , , , , ) as pro-forms with explicitly assigned antecedents. However, Lojban speakers had begun to use them as placeholder words, especially in technical discussions on the language. To distinguish both uses, some special markers were created to unambiguously differentiate between anaphoric and metasyntactic usage.

Polish

Things

The noun Template:Wikt-lang (from German Template:Literal translation) can refer to a (usually) handheld tool or device.

Persons

A universal placeholder name for a man is ( meaning "(black)smith"); for a woman, . A second unspecified person would be called ("Newman"), with the choice of first name being left to the author's imagination, often also for a man; this surname is unisex. is one of the most popular male first names in Polish, and and are the most popular Polish surnames.

Verbs

The verb ( + + (action postfix) = "that" + "of this" + " do") can refer to any action. Various prefixes (, , ) can be used to narrow down its meaning.

Russian

Universal

A large number of placeholder words for people, things, and actions are derived from Russian profanity (mat), as may be found in multiple dictionaries of Russian slang.

An informal placeholder (for persons, places, etc.) is ( (masculine form; feminine: ; neuter: ), meaning "this or that", "such and such", etc.).

Persons

A historical placeholder for a personal name used in legal documents and prayers is (), derived from the archaic expression meaning "having said the name". The word entered into a common parlance as well.

To refer to an unknown person, the words , , etc., equivalent to "someone", are used, as in "Someone stole my wallet".

Placeholders for personal names include variations on names (), (/), and (), such as () for a full name, or () for a last name; deliberately fake name-patronymic-surname combinations use one of them for all three, with the most widely used being .

The name Vasya Pupkin (Template:Langx) may be used as a placeholder name for an average random or unknown person in the colloquial speech.

Places

• Various city names are often employed as placeholders. For instance, to denote a remote, obscure place:
  • (Tmutarakan, an ancient Crimean city which sounds in modern Russian something like "dark cockroach city", тьма таракан)
  • (Zazhopinsk, "city beyond the ass")
  • (Mukhosransk, "fly shit city").
• The capital of the Russian backwoods is (Uryupinsk, a town in central Russia), although (Babruysk, a Belarusian city) has gained its popularity in the Russian Internet community.
• In some occasions in literature (a novel by famous Russian and Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol) unknown or deliberately unidentified places are referred to as (featuring a widespread adjective ending ).
• Latin N is sometimes used as a placeholder for the actual name of the site, e.g. ("city N").

Spanish

Time

• Indefinite time in the past:
  • , "times of Maricastaña", probably in reference to Template:Ill, a little known 14th century woman.
  • , "when Charles reigned". The origin is unclear, the most viable hypothesis is that it refers to Charles III of Spain: on a frontispiece of a gate in Alcalá de Henares in the Community of Madrid there used to be an inscription . While the king ruled in 18th century, the Latin text and Roman numerals gave an impression of antiquity.

Spanish (Europe)

Persons

Placeholder names in the Spanish language might have a pejorative or derogatory feeling to them, depending on the context.

• (masculine) (a fool with (drum)sticks) or . The fool in question was a jester with a drum who accompanied a town crier, with the latter collecting salary and tips for both of them, and taking lion's share Hence the indignation implied in the phrases, such as "Who do you think I am, a fool with sticks?". was one of numerous pseudonyms of Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera.
• (feminine) ("Rita the Singer") in reference to a woman who would do something one doesn't want to do oneself: . Rita de Cantaora was actually Rita Giménez García, see her article about the origin of the expression.
• (from Arabic ) is the default placeholder name for a human (the female version should be used carefully as it is also slang for "prostitute", but the diminutive form is safe). is the equivalent of John Doe. is cognate with the Biblical Hebrew term (see above).
• (from the Arabic ).
• (from the Castilian word from the Latin "known").
• (from the combination of the very common last name of Perez and Mengano).

When several placeholders are needed together, they are used in the above order, e.g. . All placeholder words are also used frequently in diminutive form, , , or .

The words and (uncle and aunt respectively) can be used to refer to any unspecified male or female. It is also used between friends to call each other (equivalent to "dude").

Places

• (lit. "the fifth pine"), , , or are colloquially used to refer to an unspecified remote place. E.g.: ("We got lost and ended up in the fifth pine")
• ("where Christ lost his cap/his sandals") and ("where Saint Peter lost his lighter") E.g.: ("Trotski was exiled to Alma Ata, which is, more or less, where Christ lost his cap").
• (or ) is, according to the Real Academia, a colloquial "distant or imprecise place". Also used with the intensifier ("faraway"), thus ("in faraway Chimbamba-land" or "in faraway Chimbambistan").
• ("in the ass end of the world") doesn't have the same meaning as in English. It is only mildly derogatory, and its primary meaning is the same as "back of nowhere".
• is a phrase that originally meant ("[go] take it up the ass"), but has been lexicalised into meaning "go to hell", "send something or someone to hell" or "forget about it", as documented in the dictionary of the Real Academia.

Welsh

Welsh uses (or the respectful ), literally "what you call", meaning whatchamacallit. Pwyna is used for persons whose name cannot immediately be recalled.

See also

• List of terms referring to an average person