German language question: In English, if you want to create a random name which could mean anyone, people often talk about “John Doe”, as in the sentence, “Any John Doe could have done it” — meaning anyone could have done it.
In Danish we sometimes say Mr. Hansen or Ms Jensen.
What do you say in German? And is it even common to use these made up names in a sentence?
@randahl Since I'm known for providing too much information, here's some more.
I agree with what was said above about John Doe in the USA. John Doe and Jane Doe are usually used to refer to a specific person(s), (...and several John Does), where the intent is to keep the actual name(s) confidential. So a criminally charged juvenile might appear in public court records as John Doe.
And, there's a new thing that's caught on in the USA in law enforcement circles. It became a standard in written documents to use FNU (first name unknown) and LNU (last name unknown). So you might see FNU Smith, or James LNU, or FNU LNU, used as names. Then people started pronouncing it FNU (finnoo) and LNU (linnoo) when reading such documents aloud and it became part of the standard lingo. So it's pretty common to hear Finnoo Davis or Finnoo Linnoo. Haha.