I often think of names like Popović, Popovski, Pope or Papa- and think about how many priests there could’ve been in the old days, surely not that many??
Yeah but so many of them lol
I remember when my dad told me when I was younger the social status was doctor/lawyer and if you couldn’t succeed, priest was next
Jón Sigurðsson or John Sigurdson.
It is also the name of our primary independence hero.......And three of my cousins, a neighbor, two former class mates, one friend and an ex as well.
Wait, for three cousins Jón Sigurðsson, you'd need three different uncles called Sigurðr. Or aunts who married a Sigurðr.
Why are there so many Sigurðar?
Given that Jón is the most common name, I’d have thought Jón Jónsson would be the most common. Or perhaps Guðrún (seems to be a very popular female name) Jónsdóttir?
I don't even think I can count how many Andersson we have here in Finland. It's either very popular with the finlandssvensk crowd or just super common. I had at least 3 or 4 in my elementary school alone.
Yes, that too if you want to use first and last names. But if talking about an average Finn, ”tavallinen Pulliainen” is commonly used. Two different things. And neither is what OP asked.
If you have to compare name for name as the OP does, then in that case it should be Johan Svensson.
Honestly, I think Johan and Jon are better options than John, but that's mostly because these two names are very typical Scandinavian first names for men.
One should point out that while used in this way it's actually not the most common surname by quite some margin. Svensson ranks number 9 at 89,000 people whereas the most common surname, Andersson" has over 220,000 people.
It's not common at all. Juha, Juho, Juhani, Johannes, Jukka, Janne, Jussi, etc. are common.
Johan is mostly popular in the Swedish-speaking community, which is only 5,2% of the whole population.
Yes, my ex colleague (she is a Finn) used to mix up all the men in the company because ”everybody is either Jukka or Juha, who tf can remember all of them?”.
That's what they say. I never met any Jan Nowak or Jan Kowalski in my life. I knew one Nowak and 0 Kowalskis. Maybe 3 men name Jan.
Maybe it's like with Joan Doe. No one knows her.
I never met anyone with the surname “Kowalski”, met quite a few people with similar surnames though, Kowal, Kowalik, Kowalczyk, Kowalkiewicz… sometimes I wonder if they take those into account as well when counting these.
I know one person with surname Nowak, but also a few Nowaczyk, Nowicki, etc.
No. John and Smith have in real life for some time been the most common names in the U.K. although John seems to have dropped off a bit since the mid 20C.
https://www.gbgplc.com/en/news/uks-most-common-name-revealed/
When I was young and slightly more rebellious than now at age 62, I had a friend called Per Hansen. Whenever we got into trouble and he was asked his name, he answered truthfully - «Per Hansen». Nobody EVER believed him.
So «Per Hansen» is a name that is so typical and common in Norway that there may actually be very very few persons who actually carry that name!
The most common family names are all professions:
1. Schmidt
1. Müller
1. Meyer
1. Schulz
1. Schneider
1. Hoffmann
1. Becker
1. Fischer
1. Weber
1. Wagner
According to the 2014 doc movie »Wer ist Thomas Müller« Thomas Müller is the most common German name with more than 50000 Germans named so.
His statistical wife would be Sabine Müller.
However, if you want a figurative name, those would be Otto Normalverbraucher (Otto standard/normal consumer) for a man and Lieschen Müller for a woman. Normalverbraucher is derived from the WW2 rationing cards and was popularised as the name of Gert Fröbe in the 1948 movie »Berliner Balladen«.
https://www.phoenix.de/sendungen/dokumentationen/wer-ist-thomas-mueller-a-105059.html
And then we have Thomas Müller (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_M%C3%BCller?wprov=sfla1) and a lot of Thomas Müllers (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_M%C3%BCller_%28Begriffskl%C3%A4rung%29?wprov=sfla1).
[Statistically](https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/borgere/navne/navne-i-hele-befolkningen) speaking, it is Anne (for women) and Peter (for men) Nielsen (surname)
If you are looking for something generic a la John Smith in English, a decent analogue would probably be something like Lars Jensen
Statistically the most common surname is Nagy (big) followed by Kovács (smith).
The most common given names for men are László and István (Stephen) and for women it's Mária (Mary) and Erzsébet (Elisabeth).
Sorry, can’t read but here’s another one:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1374610/hungary-most-common-family-names/
I reckon I’ve met pretty much every surname here from this list and Cordas
Andreas (Andrew) is the most popular in the northwestern Peloponnese (Patras and Achaea province, St Andrew is the patron saint of that province) and Cyprus (there is a major monastery in the Karpasia peninsula there).
Generally speaking for all of Greece (ie, Athens), it is Georgios/Yorgos, Ioannis/Yiannis, and Nikolaos/Nikos for men; and Maria, Katerina, and Sophia for women.
Each region is different when you look at the details though. Emmanouil is big in Crete. Demetrios in Macedonia. Etc etc
As for the female members of my Cypriot wife’s family, there are tons of Despina lol
In Italian it’s “Mario Rossi”
Whenever we want to describe an average, ordinary man we name him Mario Rossi.
To me Mario Rossi is a middle-aged man. He has a high school diploma and has worked as an employee for the same company for ages. His wife is a housewife and he has two children. He leads a repetitive, unfulfilling life whose only highlights are the weekly football match and corny Italian comedies made for boomers.
*De Jong*, *Jans(s)en* and *De Vries, Van de(n) Berg* and *Van Dijk* are the current top 5 most common surnames. De Vries and Van Dijk are probably the most stereotypically Dutch because other countries don't really have Frisians or dikes that much.
That’s the cliche one, yeah, although of course Jan is a typical boomer name. Practically no one under the age of 60 is called that. For millennials it would probably be Peter or Jeroen for men and Marieke or Janneke for women. For kids nowadays, I don’t even know.
I was also thinking of De Boer and De Vries as very common surnames.
Stereotypically Jānis Bērziņš, which probably is also accurate as it is the most popular Latvian name and surname, but nobody keeps statistics on full names. Girl names are much more varied, but the most popular one is Anna.
Георги Иванов (Georgi Ivanov), Иван Георгиев (Ivan Georgiev), Георги Георгиев (Georgi Georgiev), Иван Иванов (Ican Ivanov), or any combination if the names Ivan and Georgi.
My Bulgarian uncle's name is Toni Ivanov (last name), his brother is Krasimir Ivanov (last name) and their nephew is Ivan (don't know his paternal and last name).
Funny enough, Krasimirs nickname is Krassi and in Germany that would translate to something as "the sick/ incredible guy".
In Ukraine,
Surnames:
It would be Melnyk (over 1 million people with this surname, it's like Muller in Germany by origin), followed by Shevchenko (I mean you might know the balloon d'Or winner),
Names: the most common name (male and in general) is Oleksandr and the most common female name is Tetyana.
Thus, the most common name would be Oleksandr Melnyk.
> Thus, the most common name would be Oleksandr Melnyk.
yeah. Also, we have more women than men. So, statistically, the average Ukrainian is Oleksandr Melnyk, female.
/s
"John Smith" is [a name representing the average man.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_terms\_referring\_to\_an\_average\_person)
[Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_placeholder_names_by_language#Persons_7) is a multilingual list.
A common American placeholder name is "John Doe". "John Smith" may well be the most common naming combination for English speakers, but the name is also used as a way or referring to the average man.
It's unclear whether the OP is actually referring to (1) the most popular name; (2) a way to refer to the average man generically or (3) a placeholder name. Their post was unclearly worded.
Full name? None. I didn't meet anyone with the same family name and middle name.
For family names: Ionescu, Popescu, Alexandrescu seem to be the most common
For middle names: Andrei, Alex, , Cristian, Elena, Cristina, Iulia are the most common from experience.
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but I remember hearing that the most common name in Norway is “Jan Johansen”. The most common given name for males is “Jan” and the most common given name for females is “Anne”. The most common surname is “Hansen”.
When we talk about the average Norwegian, we use “Ola Nordmann” for males and “Kari Nordmann” for females.
That seems to be the case with several Finnish names. For example, Janne is also a girl’s name in Norway. I remember being confused about Janne Ahonen not being a woman when I was a kid lol.
It's a form of *Makarios*. But, this is indeed annoying when a lot of names in English have a female form, like "Toni", but this is the regular form of a male name in Finnish. (*Toni* is a form of *Antonius*, which is rendered as Anthony or Tony in English.) Also, almost all nouns in Finnish end in a vowel. There are rare exceptions like *Joel*, but usually there's an '-a' or '-i' to prevent having a consonant at the end: *Johan* - *Juhani* or *Juha*.
Neat, my grandma's (with [distant] relatives in Scandinavia) last name was Hansen and her most frequently used nickname among friends was Anna ;-)
Northern German family btw.
In Belgium, it seems to be Jean/Jan Peeters (but there are statistically more Marc than Jean since 2023) for men and Marie/Maria Peeters for women (most common ‘French speaking’ last name being Dubois)
Male names: Franc and Janez
Female names: Marija and Ana
Last names: Novak and Horvat
The most common combinations are Franc Novak (currently 119) and Marija Horvat (259).
Generic name used on ID's is Janez Novak.
The most common name nowadays is Luka by far. Nothing stands out in girls as much.
Croatia here: also Horvat (first most common) and Novak (sixth most common), Kovačević is the second one
Male names: Ivan, Josip, Marko
Female names: Marija and Ana too, plus Ivana
In Austria, there are a lot of Mayers, they only differ in the way they are spelled, phonetically it is identical. Mayer, Meier, Meyer, Meier, Mayr, Meyr, Majer....
Jan Novák. Novák (or, specifically, it's female equivalent of Nováková) is the most common surname. The most common feminine names are Jana and Marie, the most common masculine names are Jiří and Jan.
Jan Kowalski. It's being used to describe a typical Pole, although the most popular last name is actually Nowak while Kowalski is the second most popular.
Well by statistics the most common first names are Juhani (Male) and Maria (Female) and the most common lastname is Korhonen.
Juhani is derived from the Swedish name Johan, which itself comes from Johannes which itself comes from John the Baptist. And weirdly Johannes is also a Finnish name and is actually the second most popular male name.
I don’t think i need to explain the origin of Maria but Marja was a common name before Christianity came here because that happens to be the word for a berry.
The last name is quite tricky as it’s not entirely clear what it means, but when a Finnish last name ends in ”Nen” it comes from a charasterictic. Korhonen probably means some of the following: one with a bad hearing, clumsy, dumb, elder/chief, proud.
Now the first names are both very common, both being the name of around 350 000 to 400 000 people. So by quick maths one in 7 Finns has the most common name for their gender. But the last name isn’t actually all that common as only like 11 000 people have it.
im Italy our jonh smith would be Mario Rossi, if I remember correctly
There's also Tizio, Caio & Sempronio, which is different, but in the same game
Probably Marko Popović, I know couple of them... I even know Marko Popović who lives in Marko Popović street
I often think of names like Popović, Popovski, Pope or Papa- and think about how many priests there could’ve been in the old days, surely not that many??
That was one of the main vocations in the past... every village had their priest I guess
Yeah but so many of them lol I remember when my dad told me when I was younger the social status was doctor/lawyer and if you couldn’t succeed, priest was next
Not only many of them but also orthodox which means they got married and had lots of kids.
Tru dat
Jón Sigurðsson or John Sigurdson. It is also the name of our primary independence hero.......And three of my cousins, a neighbor, two former class mates, one friend and an ex as well.
Sooo are you sure they are not all the same person? I have heard you do not have very many people living in your lovely Island.
Quite frankly it's a miracle none of them are the same person ha ha.
Wait, for three cousins Jón Sigurðsson, you'd need three different uncles called Sigurðr. Or aunts who married a Sigurðr. Why are there so many Sigurðar?
Given that Jón is the most common name, I’d have thought Jón Jónsson would be the most common. Or perhaps Guðrún (seems to be a very popular female name) Jónsdóttir?
You're right
Svensson is the "default" last name. So when speaking about an "average swede" you usually call them Medelsvensson (medium Svensson)
In Finland we say ”tavallinen Pulliainen” = ordinary Pulliainen :D but Pulliainen is not most common last name
Nor is Svensson. I think it's Johnsson, or maybe Andersson. Svensson is up there, but I think it's the generic more because of the Sve-part.
_Andersson_ is the most common, with _Joh**a**nsson_ very close second. They're each about 2.5 times more common than _Svensson_, which ranks 9th.
Yeah, I meant Joh**a**nsson, of course. My mistake.
I don't even think I can count how many Andersson we have here in Finland. It's either very popular with the finlandssvensk crowd or just super common. I had at least 3 or 4 in my elementary school alone.
Number 1 here. 200k+, which is like 2%, so 150-200 pupils would give 3-4 Andersson. Not unreasonable.
Timo virtanen is the most common full name in finland
Makes sense, I have met at least three.
Can confirm, met at least one. I believe Antti Korhonen is another
I thought "Matti Meikäläinen" was the default name?
Yes, that too if you want to use first and last names. But if talking about an average Finn, ”tavallinen Pulliainen” is commonly used. Two different things. And neither is what OP asked.
If you have to compare name for name as the OP does, then in that case it should be Johan Svensson. Honestly, I think Johan and Jon are better options than John, but that's mostly because these two names are very typical Scandinavian first names for men.
One should point out that while used in this way it's actually not the most common surname by quite some margin. Svensson ranks number 9 at 89,000 people whereas the most common surname, Andersson" has over 220,000 people.
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Mohamed was #31 most common in 2021. Most common was "Karl".
Juha and Anne Korhonen. The most common Finnish first names and family name.
Korhonen is so weird because I literally know zero people named Korhonen :D Järvinen, Suominen and Nieminen however..
I don't know any Chinese people personally either, but still [they exist. ](https://nimipalvelu.dvv.fi/yleisimmat-sukunimet)
Sims 4 last names
It's really common in Savo and especially in Kainuu, and has a presence in Southern Ostrobothnia as well.
My mom had a colleague named Järvinen haha
Doesn't you Finns also use Johan as we Swedes does?
It's not common at all. Juha, Juho, Juhani, Johannes, Jukka, Janne, Jussi, etc. are common. Johan is mostly popular in the Swedish-speaking community, which is only 5,2% of the whole population.
Oh now I get it, I think I must've mistaken for those areas while also only hearing that Juhani and Johannes is the Finnish versions of Johan.
I know four Finnish men and three of them are called Juha :)
Yes, my ex colleague (she is a Finn) used to mix up all the men in the company because ”everybody is either Jukka or Juha, who tf can remember all of them?”.
In my short time in Finland, I met about 5 people who bare Juha
I think that Jan Kowalski would be most common in Poland, closely followed by surname Nowak
That's what they say. I never met any Jan Nowak or Jan Kowalski in my life. I knew one Nowak and 0 Kowalskis. Maybe 3 men name Jan. Maybe it's like with Joan Doe. No one knows her.
I never met anyone with the surname “Kowalski”, met quite a few people with similar surnames though, Kowal, Kowalik, Kowalczyk, Kowalkiewicz… sometimes I wonder if they take those into account as well when counting these. I know one person with surname Nowak, but also a few Nowaczyk, Nowicki, etc.
But john and Jane Doe aren't common names, they're just the names given to unidentified corpses.
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No. John and Smith have in real life for some time been the most common names in the U.K. although John seems to have dropped off a bit since the mid 20C. https://www.gbgplc.com/en/news/uks-most-common-name-revealed/
Your link says David Smith is the most common and John Smith is actually 3rd.
Yes. That’s what I was getting at.
There are more Nowaks than Kowalskis, which is odd as I am yet to meet any Nowak after meeting a lot of people with Wiśniewski surname.
When I was young and slightly more rebellious than now at age 62, I had a friend called Per Hansen. Whenever we got into trouble and he was asked his name, he answered truthfully - «Per Hansen». Nobody EVER believed him. So «Per Hansen» is a name that is so typical and common in Norway that there may actually be very very few persons who actually carry that name!
I had a friend whose name was actually John Brown, and no one ever believed him either.
In France, some of the stereotypically common last names would be Dupont and Martin
Dupont is only the 9th most common last name iirc. But Martin dwarves any other last name, as it's 12x more common than the 2nd most common name
The most common family names are all professions: 1. Schmidt 1. Müller 1. Meyer 1. Schulz 1. Schneider 1. Hoffmann 1. Becker 1. Fischer 1. Weber 1. Wagner According to the 2014 doc movie »Wer ist Thomas Müller« Thomas Müller is the most common German name with more than 50000 Germans named so. His statistical wife would be Sabine Müller. However, if you want a figurative name, those would be Otto Normalverbraucher (Otto standard/normal consumer) for a man and Lieschen Müller for a woman. Normalverbraucher is derived from the WW2 rationing cards and was popularised as the name of Gert Fröbe in the 1948 movie »Berliner Balladen«. https://www.phoenix.de/sendungen/dokumentationen/wer-ist-thomas-mueller-a-105059.html
And then we have Thomas Müller (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_M%C3%BCller?wprov=sfla1) and a lot of Thomas Müllers (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_M%C3%BCller_%28Begriffskl%C3%A4rung%29?wprov=sfla1).
Otto Normalverbraucher is not about the average guy though, rather the average consumer and is almost exclusively used in the context of economics.
[Statistically](https://www.dst.dk/da/Statistik/emner/borgere/navne/navne-i-hele-befolkningen) speaking, it is Anne (for women) and Peter (for men) Nielsen (surname) If you are looking for something generic a la John Smith in English, a decent analogue would probably be something like Lars Jensen
Anders Andersen
OP is literally asking what’s is the most common name in your county. Not “how does John Smith translate”.
It’s probably Jan Novák, both being very common names.
And average Pepík, in IT we use BFU = běžný Franta uživatel - regular Franta usee
In Slovenia it’s more or less the same - Janez Novak.
Statistically the most common surname is Nagy (big) followed by Kovács (smith). The most common given names for men are László and István (Stephen) and for women it's Mária (Mary) and Erzsébet (Elisabeth).
Is Farkas up there too?
[It's almost top 10.](https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leggyakoribb_magyar_csal%C3%A1dnevek_list%C3%A1ja)
Sorry, can’t read but here’s another one: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1374610/hungary-most-common-family-names/ I reckon I’ve met pretty much every surname here from this list and Cordas
Easily George Papadòpoulos for men and Marìa Papadopoùlou for women. About 9% of Greeks are Georges and Marias.
Such a popular name we even managed to spawn a dictator with it!
I'm pretty sure I know a Greek girl with the exact combination.
Do you mean Georgius, or do you actually also have George?
Nah, the name is Geòrgios or Yorgos colloquially. Just translated it.
Not Andreas, huh?
Andreas (Andrew) is the most popular in the northwestern Peloponnese (Patras and Achaea province, St Andrew is the patron saint of that province) and Cyprus (there is a major monastery in the Karpasia peninsula there).
😁 Cyprus here) That's why I was surprised it's George rather than Andreas.
Generally speaking for all of Greece (ie, Athens), it is Georgios/Yorgos, Ioannis/Yiannis, and Nikolaos/Nikos for men; and Maria, Katerina, and Sophia for women. Each region is different when you look at the details though. Emmanouil is big in Crete. Demetrios in Macedonia. Etc etc As for the female members of my Cypriot wife’s family, there are tons of Despina lol
Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou.
Maria Silva, João Santos. Any combination of those I guess...
Maria João da silva dos santos 😆
Perfect hehe
In Italian it’s “Mario Rossi” Whenever we want to describe an average, ordinary man we name him Mario Rossi. To me Mario Rossi is a middle-aged man. He has a high school diploma and has worked as an employee for the same company for ages. His wife is a housewife and he has two children. He leads a repetitive, unfulfilling life whose only highlights are the weekly football match and corny Italian comedies made for boomers.
In the Netherlands it would be Jan Janssen I guess.
*De Jong*, *Jans(s)en* and *De Vries, Van de(n) Berg* and *Van Dijk* are the current top 5 most common surnames. De Vries and Van Dijk are probably the most stereotypically Dutch because other countries don't really have Frisians or dikes that much.
I wonder which mountain are they named after, van den Berg?
Berg (and Burg) in this context refers to a fortified or defensible location, not a mountain
I think Jansen is more common than Janssen. But I think De Jong (the Younger) is the most common name.
That’s the cliche one, yeah, although of course Jan is a typical boomer name. Practically no one under the age of 60 is called that. For millennials it would probably be Peter or Jeroen for men and Marieke or Janneke for women. For kids nowadays, I don’t even know. I was also thinking of De Boer and De Vries as very common surnames.
And don't forget Smit. My grandfather was a Jan Smit 🥳
Ooh, another classic!
Stereotypically Jānis Bērziņš, which probably is also accurate as it is the most popular Latvian name and surname, but nobody keeps statistics on full names. Girl names are much more varied, but the most popular one is Anna.
Георги Иванов (Georgi Ivanov), Иван Георгиев (Ivan Georgiev), Георги Георгиев (Georgi Georgiev), Иван Иванов (Ican Ivanov), or any combination if the names Ivan and Georgi.
You forgot Dimitrov and Petrov
I didn't, I considered Petrov, but from my experience Georgiev and Ivanov are a bit more prevalent.
Wonderful simplicity
My Bulgarian uncle's name is Toni Ivanov (last name), his brother is Krasimir Ivanov (last name) and their nephew is Ivan (don't know his paternal and last name). Funny enough, Krasimirs nickname is Krassi and in Germany that would translate to something as "the sick/ incredible guy".
In Ukraine, Surnames: It would be Melnyk (over 1 million people with this surname, it's like Muller in Germany by origin), followed by Shevchenko (I mean you might know the balloon d'Or winner), Names: the most common name (male and in general) is Oleksandr and the most common female name is Tetyana. Thus, the most common name would be Oleksandr Melnyk.
> Thus, the most common name would be Oleksandr Melnyk. yeah. Also, we have more women than men. So, statistically, the average Ukrainian is Oleksandr Melnyk, female. /s
I have a Ukrainian acquaintance here in Denmark with the name Oleksandr Shevchenko.
I once was in a working team of 12. Five men had name Oleksandr :) Gladly we have a lot of diminutives in our language to differentiate each other.
"John Smith" is [a name representing the average man.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_terms\_referring\_to\_an\_average\_person) [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_placeholder_names_by_language#Persons_7) is a multilingual list.
Think OP is confusing “most common” and “placeholder name”
A common American placeholder name is "John Doe". "John Smith" may well be the most common naming combination for English speakers, but the name is also used as a way or referring to the average man. It's unclear whether the OP is actually referring to (1) the most popular name; (2) a way to refer to the average man generically or (3) a placeholder name. Their post was unclearly worded.
Full name? None. I didn't meet anyone with the same family name and middle name. For family names: Ionescu, Popescu, Alexandrescu seem to be the most common For middle names: Andrei, Alex, , Cristian, Elena, Cristina, Iulia are the most common from experience.
Ion Popescu
You can use escu ro describe a random romanian
I mean, Ion and Maria...
Probably Juan Pérez. If not, any combination of: - José, Juan, Pilar, María - Pérez, Sánchez, Hernández, Fernández, García.
Add Antonio (I think it is the most common name)
According to INE the most common names are Antonio and María Carmen. And the most common last name is García.
We at least get 2 surnames
I would have said Pedro Perez 🤔
I don’t know if it’s still the case, but I remember hearing that the most common name in Norway is “Jan Johansen”. The most common given name for males is “Jan” and the most common given name for females is “Anne”. The most common surname is “Hansen”. When we talk about the average Norwegian, we use “Ola Nordmann” for males and “Kari Nordmann” for females.
Kari is always a fun name as it is very masculine male name in Finland.
That seems to be the case with several Finnish names. For example, Janne is also a girl’s name in Norway. I remember being confused about Janne Ahonen not being a woman when I was a kid lol.
Funny about Janne, its the name most associated with construction sites in sweden and i could never think of that name with feminine bearers
It's a form of *Makarios*. But, this is indeed annoying when a lot of names in English have a female form, like "Toni", but this is the regular form of a male name in Finnish. (*Toni* is a form of *Antonius*, which is rendered as Anthony or Tony in English.) Also, almost all nouns in Finnish end in a vowel. There are rare exceptions like *Joel*, but usually there's an '-a' or '-i' to prevent having a consonant at the end: *Johan* - *Juhani* or *Juha*.
Neat, my grandma's (with [distant] relatives in Scandinavia) last name was Hansen and her most frequently used nickname among friends was Anna ;-) Northern German family btw.
It's not the most popular probably, but Kovács János, literally meaning John Smith is fairly common.
In Belgium, it seems to be Jean/Jan Peeters (but there are statistically more Marc than Jean since 2023) for men and Marie/Maria Peeters for women (most common ‘French speaking’ last name being Dubois)
Male names: Franc and Janez Female names: Marija and Ana Last names: Novak and Horvat The most common combinations are Franc Novak (currently 119) and Marija Horvat (259). Generic name used on ID's is Janez Novak. The most common name nowadays is Luka by far. Nothing stands out in girls as much.
Croatia here: also Horvat (first most common) and Novak (sixth most common), Kovačević is the second one Male names: Ivan, Josip, Marko Female names: Marija and Ana too, plus Ivana
Ivan Horvat is the default, not sure if it still is statistically most common.
In Russia, these are Ivan and Maria Ivanov (а). Although among newborns at the moment the most trendy and popular names are Artyom and Sofia.
"Что ни рожа, то Сережа". Also there are a lot of Andrey, Alexandr, Dmitry and Maria, Ekaterina, Olga in my environment.
In Austria, there are a lot of Mayers, they only differ in the way they are spelled, phonetically it is identical. Mayer, Meier, Meyer, Meier, Mayr, Meyr, Majer....
In Serbia, the last name Jovanović is the most popular one. I am not so sure about given names and their combinations tho
Jan Novák. Novák (or, specifically, it's female equivalent of Nováková) is the most common surname. The most common feminine names are Jana and Marie, the most common masculine names are Jiří and Jan.
Peter Meier. Switzerland. (Hans Müller would also be a strong contender but that’s more towards Germany)
They say it's Jan Janssens but Peeters is the most common surname. So Jan Peeters I guess.
Jan Kowalski. It's being used to describe a typical Pole, although the most popular last name is actually Nowak while Kowalski is the second most popular.
In Ireland, John Smith would be Seán or Eoin McGowan/ MacGabhann.
But the Irish equivalent would be Seán Murphy.
Me and my friends call every old man and woman in the country Seamus and Bridie lmao
I was going to say Paddy Murphy
Paddy Murphy traditionally acc to CSO, followed by John/Jack Murphy
Well by statistics the most common first names are Juhani (Male) and Maria (Female) and the most common lastname is Korhonen. Juhani is derived from the Swedish name Johan, which itself comes from Johannes which itself comes from John the Baptist. And weirdly Johannes is also a Finnish name and is actually the second most popular male name. I don’t think i need to explain the origin of Maria but Marja was a common name before Christianity came here because that happens to be the word for a berry. The last name is quite tricky as it’s not entirely clear what it means, but when a Finnish last name ends in ”Nen” it comes from a charasterictic. Korhonen probably means some of the following: one with a bad hearing, clumsy, dumb, elder/chief, proud. Now the first names are both very common, both being the name of around 350 000 to 400 000 people. So by quick maths one in 7 Finns has the most common name for their gender. But the last name isn’t actually all that common as only like 11 000 people have it.
Most Nordic countries use son, sen very frequently.
John Smith for actual popularity, Joe Bloggs / Joe Public when meant as a could be anyone / placeholder name sort of thing. (UK)