# The most common/ordinary name: John Smith



## dahut

Hello!

This is just a question out of my curiosity.

Which is the most common or ordinary name for a person in your country?
As in *John Smith* in *English*.
- Search for all the "John Smith"!
- Yeah... Right.
Is it *Jane Smith* the woman's equivalent? As in the film (Mr. & Mrs. Smith)?

Is in Norwegian *Ole Nielsen*?
Is in Swedish *Ola Nilson*?
Is in Spanish *José García* or *Francisco Pérez*? *María García*?

Does anybody know how a specific name became so popular, even ordinary?

Thank you! ¡Gracias! Merci! Takk skal du ha! Gracies! ...


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## sokol

In European culture (cultures based on Christianity) basically there are a very few first names which are used extensively, in many different versions; I've marked the 'typical' names in bold letters:

- Greek _Ιωάννης _& Latin _Iohannes _> German Johann(es), Johann, *Hans*; English *John*; French *Jean*; Spanish *Juan*; Italian Giovanni, *Gianni* and many others; Friuli/Veneto historically (Middle Ages) Zian or Zuan and now *Zan *or Xani; Slavic languages *Ivan*, *Jan *or similar, like Slovenian *Janez*, Serbian *Jovan*, etc.; Hungarian *Janos*; Irish *Sean *and many, many more

- with *Maria *there's not nearly so much variation (but still lots), but at least in *Catholic *regions it is (or rather was) one of the most common female names and therefore is somewhat typical for many (at least Catholic) nations; in Austria for Maria there exists the variant *Mizzi *which could be considered as 'typical Austrian'

These two names, one male and one female, probably are the *most typical first names* in many languages touched by Christianity.
But there are some other Christian names which are typical for nations in many ways, like Josef (of which two variations, Sepp and Peppi, are rather typical Austrian), also Italian Giuseppe, Bepi, etc.; English Joe; Dutch Jupp; Spanish José etc.

As for surnames: here I can only offer some of the most common German ones (which exist in many different written forms: for 'Schmied' there are a great many: _Schmied, Schmid, Schmitt, Schmitz etc.)_: *Maier, Müller, Schmid, Huber *(all of them are names of professions, etymologically).
Apart from that there are names only of regional importance and therefore not too typical for the whole German speaking area; therefore, they're not very relevant for this thread. Even some of the above mentioned names are 'slightly' regional: for example, 'Huber' is very common in Bavaria and Austria and probably even rare in Northern Germany; and apart from that, some writings are regional (as is Schmid).

So, an archetypical German name could be *Hans Maier*, *Sepp Huber**), or* Maria Müller*, and so on - you may combine first and last names as you please.

*This particular combination, especially when the surname stands first, so *Huber Sepp*, is very typical for Austria and Bavaria and most likely untypical elsewhere in the German speaking area. [I probably should add here: in the Central European Region, probably the area of the old Habsburg monarchy, I'm not sure, it is not uncommon at all to write the surname in the first place, and then the 'first' name = 'Christian' name: this in Austria nowadays is mainly typical for rural regions while in urban regions it is more and more 'first name + surname'.]


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## Kangy

In Spanish: Juan Pérez / Juan García


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## בעל-חלומות

In Hebrew/Israel the most common name is משה כהן (Moché Kohen, with the _ch _pronounced as in French).

These days, though, very few call their children Moché, so it will probably change soon.



> Greek _Ιωάννης _& Latin _Iohannes _> German Johann(es), Johann, *Hans*; English *John*; French *Jean*; Spanish *Juan*; Italian Giovanni, *Gianni* and many others; Friuli/Veneto historically (Middle Ages) Zian or Zuan and now *Zan *or Xani; Slavic languages *Ivan*, *Jan *or similar, like Slovenian *Janez*, Serbian *Jovan*, etc.; Hungarian *Janos*; Irish *Sean *and many, many more


Funny how the original version of the name, יוחנן (Iokhanan), is so rare in Israel, while its derivatives are so common in Europe.


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## Outsider

In Portugal: *José Silva* is often claimed to be the most common, "typical" full name. The surnames *João* and *Maria* are also stereotypically common. 

All three surnames are Biblical in origin. They correspond to Joseph, John, and Mary.


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## dahut

Wow! Thank you so much for all your answers.

I see... At least in some areas, it is a sort of combination of a "Christian 1st.name" + a "profession surname". That makes sense!

García and Pérez aren't professions... hmm... (I need some research here. I'll be back!)

And what about Mohamed and Ali? Are they typical in Arabian areas?
What about in India or China? Japan?


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## dahut

בעל-חלומות said:


> In Hebrew/Israel the most common name is משה כהן (Moché Kohen, with the _ch _pronounced as in French).


 As in Leonard *Kohen*? (it used to be my mother's favourite singer)



בעל-חלומות said:


> Funny how the original version of the name, יוחנן (Iokhanan), is so rare in Israel, while its derivatives are so common in Europe.


Very interesting, indeed. Well, I think so! 

Aren't "Levi" common as well? Or am I just confused?


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## dahut

Sorry for my translation, I found this at surmanes.org/apellidos/

GARCÍA

Origin and meaning:
It is a patronymic surname. It comes from the Pre-Roman name García.
It is of Iberian origin, it became Hortza, Artza or Hartze. According to this theory, it would be a native from Iparralde.
In the Goth language, it means “good-looking prince”* (* help with the translation: príncipe de vista agraciada). This means that before the Muslim invasion, the name already existed in other _Spanish_ regions.
This surname was first referred ca. 843 AD.

PÉREZ
Origin and meaning:
The surname Pérez belongs to the patronymic surnames group. Meaning those surnames that come from a first name, and at a historic point the name became a surname. It is worth mentioning, that this sort of surnames are the most common ones in Spain. The Pérez surname comes from Pedro or Petrus (Peter), a very common name in the Middle Ages.

If anybody can re-write it, and make it more "_readable_", please, be my guest! 

This means that José Pérez would mean: Joshep, son of Peter!!


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## avok

dahut said:


> And what about Mohamed and Ali? Are they typical in Arabian areas?
> What about in India or China? Japan?


 
What about Turkey?

In Turkey, Muhammed is not that common since it is the name of the prophet but the Turkified version of the name Muhammed which is "Mehmet" is pretty common.

Ali is common among the Alevi and Alawite populations of Turkey and in the rest too.


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## sam1978

I'd say in Italy the most ordinary name is: "Mario Rossi"...


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## sokol

dahut said:


> I see... At least in some areas, it is a sort of combination of a "Christian 1st.name" + a "profession surname". That makes sense!
> 
> García and Pérez aren't professions... hmm... (I need some research here. I'll be back!)



Profession names as surnames are extremely common *north of the Romance area *- not that profession names are rare in the Romance languages, but there many names with different origin are very common, too.
This is due to the history of surname development: it happened much earlier in the Romance countries, especially in Italy (but I guess in Spain and France too; well - probably there might be a difference between northern and southern France).

When in the Alps and north of them (so, basically, beginning in Austria and to the north and east of Austria) names developped society already was quite fragmented, many professions have developped (this was only beginning there around 1200 and came to an end in the 15th century, or even later; especially the great masses - rural population and lower classes in towns - were late in being given surnames, and the most typical and frequent names are the ones of this segment of society, of course: and this segment of society many times chose the profession rather than patronyms, qualities, origin, etc.: or rather, only profession names are exactly the same no matter where you're from, while names referring to origin never could become so dominant as a _Smith _or a _Miller_).

In Italy, on the other hand, surnames for the rural population developped significantly earlier (and other names were chosen: patronyms, qualities, origin, etc.), and from there this trend spread to France and Spain, and only later to the rest of Europe.
And so, if you take a look at the 
Wiki list of most common Italian names, you'll probably be surprised to find there:
- Rossi (so, a quality: red; such names also exist in English and German, see _White _or _Weiss_, both meaning the same colour); come to think of it: the typical Italian surname really would be *Rossi*, as sam1978 already wrote
- Ferrari (profession, or is it? I'm meaning _Smith _here, of course)

As for Cohen: archetypical Jewish names in German literature are *Moishe *and *Kohn*, so both essentially the same as English _Cohen _and Hebrew _Moché Kohen:_ interesting how stereotypes survive. 
(And even though this combination seems to become rare in Israel, as written above by the User whose Hebrew letters I can't reproduce here, this doesn't mean a thing to the stereotypical name: this one still exists, obviously. The same goes for many such stereotypes - you won't find many Huber Sepp's in Austria any more, of that I can assure you, nevertheless the name still is stereotypical. )

As for *Mehmet *and *Ali*, these two names, here in Austria, are thought of as 'typically Turkish' - this is what _Austrians _think, Turkish people might feel otherwise. I can't think of any similar stereotypical Turkish surname.


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## sam1978

sokol said:


> - Ferrari (profession, or is it? I'm meaning _Smith _here, of course)



No, it isn't. It's just the name of a car company!


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## loladamore

The most common names on the Mexican electoral roll are *Juan Hernández Hernández* and *María Hernández Hernández*.
I don't know if anyone has done a breakdown on the basis of one surname only.


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## Mahaodeh

In Arabic I think the most common would probably be Mohammed Abdullah; Mohammed is by far the most common name, followed by Abdullah.  However, I don't really think that there is an overall common last name only some regional ones.


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## Frank06

Hi,

In Dutch (Flanders, Belgium) it would be something as *Jan Peeters*.
'Jan' already has been dealt with in previous posts, 'Peeters' comes from 'Peters zoon', the son of Peter.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## OldAvatar

In Romanian, _Popescu,_ _Ionescu and Popa _*(the priest) *are the most common family names.

_Ion _is the most common forename (about 4 million occurences), while _Ion Popescu_ is probably the most frequent combination.


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## Stéphane89

In French, I think it is: *Jean Dupont*.

We've already dealt with Jean. "Dupont" means litteraly "from the bridge". I don't know where it could come from.

Otherwise, we sometimes hear the name "Mr. Van Pipperzeel" in French-speaking Belgium when someone wants to speak about "the average man in the street". I haven't got a clue about the origin. I can just say that it's a name which has a Flemish connotation.


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## Nanon

StefKE said:


> In French, I think it is: *Jean Dupont*.



According to various sources it seems to be Martin (see also here)... but the articles refer to family names only. "Jean Dupont" is probably the most frequent combination. Or _was _it? Jean is not often used to name today's babies...

Three frequent family names, Dupont - Durand - Martin, often come to the mind exactly in this order. They are used as examples to name 'the typical French' ("_Monsieur Dupont_ marries _Mademoiselle Durand_").


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## se16teddy

In England for 'the typical person' we often say_ Joe Bloggs _or _the man on the Clapham omnibus._
In America they say _John Doe. _
There is a Wikipedia item on this subject, with particular reference to legal discussions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_doe


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## sokol

There are two, no: three different kinds of names involved here already, as the posts go so far:

- the name which is *felt as 'being typical'* for a nation or region, that is for example John Smith, Moishe Kohn, Huber Sepp, etc.; these names (that is, the first names as the surnames usually aren't chosen) many times aren't chosen much more

- the name which is *statistically the most common *which, essentially, changes every few decades (well: especially the first names will, while surnames aren't changed that much, at least not in Europe)

- the names which are chosen to *indicate some unknown person, *like Joe Blogs or John Doe: or at least, as far as I know this is what they're used for (in a crime thriller one might read 'we've got a John Doe here' which would mean, in this context, a body of which the name is unknown yet); in Austria this could be _Max Mustermann_ or _Herr und Frau Österreicher _in commercials, but this wouldn't be used for the crime thriller context; I don't know if we've got such a name here


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## avok

There are common names in Turkey like Ali, as I mentioned above but we do not have common first + last names like John Smith in English.
And as mentioned above, common names are getting less and less common nowadays.


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## Hakro

The most common family name in Finland is *Virtanen* (virta = river).

The most common given name is *Juhani* (= John) and it even has a couple of variations (Juhana, Johannes, Jussi...).


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## Zsanna

I agree with Sokol in that different approaches seem to appear more and more... so I'll try not to mix things up even though I think it is interesting (and maybe useful, too) to mention the different aspects connected.

The equivalent (both in the sense as it was mentioned originally and word by word) of _John Smith_ in Hungarian would be *Kovács János*. 

However, with the following remarks:
A) It reflects a bit my taste, background knowledge, age, etc. (I could imagine another Hungarian - especially one who doesn't know Hofi's skecth - saying _Kovács István_, _Szabó János_, etc. And I do not know if there is an "official" version, either.)

B) It is not totally a name like _John Smith_ in the sense that you would not suspect anybody not wanting to tell their "real" name if this name was given. (It is not a name for hiding your real identity.)

C) It could also be considered as the equivalent of _Joe Bloggs_ in certain circumstances. (See the humorist's sketch I mentioned above.)

D) For a long time it was probably statistically the most common (and "normal") male name (both family and first name, by now probably only the family name stayed common).


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## Encolpius

Hello! In *Czech *it is *Jan Novák. *
(interesting thread)


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## apmoy70

And in Greek it's *«Γεώργιος Παπαδόπουλος»* [ʝeˈor.ʝi.os pa.paˈðo.pu.los].
For females the equivalent is *«Μαρία Παπαδοπούλου»* [maˈɾi.a pa.pa.ðoˈpu.lu].

*«Γεώργιος»* and its familiar form *«Γιώργος»* [ˈʝorɣos] --> _George_ is the most common first name for males in the country.
*«Παπαδόπουλος»* means _son of a priest_ (future priests may marry prior to their ordination into priesthood, in the Orthodox Church)


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## Penyafort

The equivalent of John Smith in Catalan would be Joan Ferrer (or variants Ferré, Farré). Which is indeed a very common combination.

In fact, Joan (John) and Pere (Peter) have traditionally been among the most common, as a typical saying confirms '_Joan, Peres i ases, n'hi ha a totes les cases_' (Johns, Peters and asses, you'll find them in all the houses). Josep (Joseph) and Jordi (George) wouldn't be far behind, historically.

But statistically speaking today, Marc or Pau combined with Vidal, Martí or Serra, would probably go on top.


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## djmc

While Jon Smith would be a very common name in England, if I were talking in a legal context about the average man in the street, the normal term would be "John Doe". I I (English) were talking generally about the average man in the street, I would say "Fred Bloggs". Neither Fred bor Bloggs are common names, though I knew a couple of people who were called Fred because there were more than three people who had their name Mike and John respectively in their immediate circle. Mike (Michael) was another very common christian name, I knew somz who were called things like "Mike T", another as Giles.


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