List of English-language placeholder names for people
This is a list of English-language placeholder names for people. A variety of such placeholder names are used in the English language, some with respect to the average unnamed person, and some with specialized meanings such as reference to people in particular professions. Some morphologists "will distinguish between placeholders such as thingummy and placeholder names like John Doe".[1]
Common names
[edit]A. N. Other
[edit]A. N. Other is used as a placeholder name or, less commonly, used as a pseudonym by a person wishing to remain anonymous. It is most used in the United Kingdom, often written as AN Other. Occasionally it may be abbreviated to ANO, or—in cases where a female name is expected—rendered as Ann(e) Other. These various uses evoke the phrase, "an other", or the word, "another". A similarly constructed placeholder name, U. N. Owen, invokes the word "unknown".
As a placeholder name, A. N. Other is commonly employed in lists of cricket players, where players' names are traditionally listed as initials and surname (e.g., I. T. Botham), for players whose names have not yet been announced or are unknown (e.g. "Additional players: A. W. Smith, J. C. Taylor and A. N. Other").[2]
The Formula One racing driver Jackie Stewart raced as "A. N. Other" early in his career, supposedly because his mother would worry if she knew he was racing cars.[3]
Alan Smithee
[edit]Alan Smithee (also Allen Smithee) is an official pseudonym used by film directors who wish to disown a project. Coined by the Directors Guild of America in 1968, it was used until 2000 when it was largely discontinued.[4] It was the sole pseudonym used by DGA members who were, on paper, directors of a film but were dissatisfied with the final product and able to prove to a guild panel that they had not been able to exercise creative control over its filming process. The director was also required by guild rules not to discuss the circumstances leading to the move or even to acknowledge being the project's director.[5] The Alan Smithee credit has also been adopted for direction credit disputes in television, music videos and other media.
Alice and Bob
[edit]
Alice and Bob are fictional characters commonly used as placeholders in discussions about cryptographic systems and protocols,[6] and in other science and engineering literature where there are several participants in a thought experiment. The Alice and Bob characters were created by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman in their 1978 paper "A Method for Obtaining Digital Signatures and Public-key Cryptosystems".[7] Subsequently, they have become common archetypes in many scientific and engineering fields, such as quantum cryptography, game theory and physics.[8] As the use of Alice and Bob became more widespread, additional characters were added, sometimes each with a particular meaning. These characters do not have to refer to people; they refer to generic agents which might be different computers or even different programs running on a single computer.
The names, Alice and Bob, are used for convenience and to aid comprehension. For example, "How can Bob send a private message M to Alice in a public-key cryptosystem?"[7] is believed to be easier to describe and understand than if the hypothetical people were simply named A and B as in "How can B send a private message M to A in a public-key cryptosystem?" 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. The choice of these names may have come from the film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.[9]
Babyboy and Babygirl
[edit]"Babyboy" and "Babygirl" are traditionally used as placeholder names by medical personnel for unnamed or unidentified infants placed in their care, usually with the surname of the mother if known, such as "Babyboy Johnson" or "Babygirl Smith". A 2003 journal article and a 2015 news report noted that hospitals using a standard "Babyboy" or "Babygirl" placeholder for the first names of unidentified newborns has led to mix-ups in identification and medication of the infants.[10][11] The journal article noted the tendency of temporary names not to be transferred from one data system to another, causing a break in information.[10]
Fred Bloggs or Joe Bloggs
[edit]"Joe Bloggs" or "Fred Bloggs" are placeholder names used primarily in the United Kingdom[citation needed] to represent an average man.
The surnames Blogg/Bloggs/Bloke are believed to have originated in the East Anglian region of Britain, Norfolk or Suffolk, deriving from bloc, "pale, fair, shining".[12]
In The Princeton Review standardised test preparation courses, "Joe Bloggs" represents the average test-taker, and students are trained to identify the "Joe Bloggs answer", or the choice which seems right but may be misleading on harder questions.