Asklemmy

In Germany there is "Max Mustermann", which basically translates to Max Template-man. It's the default German name used for templates of official documents like passports and such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_placeholder_names_by_language

In my country (Spanish speaking) we say "Fulano de tal" Fulano is kinda like a template name nobody really is named like that. "De tal" really means something like "from somewhere".

We dont out it on the graves, but we use it as slang for situations where we need to refer to someone generic like "imagine a fulano de tal doing xxxxxxxxxxx".

There are other names like Zutano, Mengano, etc.

Edit: My mom sometimes uses "Miguel Perez". Those 2 are very common first and last names.

We have the phrase 'every Tom, Dick and Harry' which is like that (UK)

If we're talking about a generic person it's usually Mr/s Smith or Mr/s Jones (near Wales)

In the Philippines, it's Juan and Maria dela Cruz, although those have fallen out of use due to the popularity of Western (aka US) culture. Interesting reading about every country's own names for their everyman.

In the Netherlands there’s “Jan Modaal”, modaal (modal) referring the most commonly occurring value in or peak of a distribution. This name is used often when representing the experience of the most average Dutchman.

It’s especially often used in financial discussions and journalism, like “owning a house is getting further out of reach for Jan Modaal.”

In the UK it is Joe Bloggs

In Norway we have “Ola Nordmann” and “Kari Nordmann”. Ola and Kari are pretty common and generic names. Nordmann literally means Norwegian, but can also be used as a last name.

Not to stifle further discussion, but this Wikipedia page has a wealth of examples

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_placeholder_names_by_language

In the UK for a random guy it's usually Joe Bloggs.

In Vietnam, I think it's just most names 😂. Anh Nguyen is probably a good example. Most Vietnamese have the last name Nguyen. The national naming conventions rival that of religious families in the west. Think, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Anh, An, Thanh, and Minh. Women are the same, but named after things considered beautiful, Tuyet, Hong, Pham, Van.

Funny enough, many names aren't always gendered, so I've met a decent amount of couples with the same first and last names. An Thi Nguyen, and An Van Nguyen is a couple that comes to mind. I dont have to worry about doxxing, since I bet that exists over 1000x here.

In Finnish it's Matti Meikäläinen for male and Maija Meikäläinen for woman. Matti Meikäläinen roughly translates to Matt Myself

Flemish talking part of Belgium it is Jan Janssen

Sweden: Svensson, although the most common surname is Andersson.

Specifically for Gothenburg - Glenn "everybody is called Glenn in Gothenburg", or older use - Kålle (male) and Ada (female). Not used that often.

France: Martin Dupont

But I prefer Dominique Dupont as the first name is both for men and women.

In the Netherlands, it's either "Jan Smit" (both a very common first and last name, but also a local celebrity's name) or "Henk de Vries" which IIRC is the most common name here.

I also vaguely remember some old Dutch forum naming everyone Henk de Vries by default.

Japan, you usually use "Taro Tanaka" as the goto placeholder name. Tanaka is a very common surname here and it's super easy to write as well (田中). Sato is actually the most common but also a lot harder to write (佐藤). Tanaka is also a very "working class" name, it litearlly means "in the rice field" and most likely comes from families with a background of rice farmers. Taro also a very common given name; there have been quite a few Taro Tanakas throughout history despite being the placeholder name on most forms and the like. Taro, incidentally means "Big/Strong Son".

I am not sure offhand of a female equilvalent, it's usually Taro as the placeholder.

Cantonese: 陳大文 (can4 daai6 man4) Japanese: 山田太郎 (yamada taro)

Back in the day on an old imageboard we used to call anonymous users "Chopped Liver"

In Poland typically, both officially and informally, one says N. N. (Latin nomen nescio, identity unknown).

The "John Smith" in Chinese is 王小明 (pinyin: wang2 xiao3 ming2), the 王 being the family name and 小明 being the given name. The 王 is a very common family name (like Smith), 小, small, is a diminutive prefix often added to nicknames, and 明, bright, is a commonly used character in given name. I should note that this is only used for males and there isn't really a "Jane Smith" for females.

Jhojho Aboolafya in everywhere in the Middle East I've been.

In Arabic its “فلان الفلاني" “fulan al-fulany”, which roughly translates to “someone from some family”

Hm, well about 40% of our population is named Nguyễn. I don't think there's an equivalent expression, but I'd choose Anh Nguyễn. In addition to being a name for both genders, 'Anh' just means something like 'sir' or 'older brother'.