Faleeria Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 (I hope this is the correct section to post this in!) Earlier today, I was thinking about my name and how I don't like because it is very "generic" in my opinion (because I dislike it, I won't share it on here, sorry). Then, I suddenly started asking myself: What is the most "generic" name people can come up with? (I define "generic" as something that is used very often in the context of this question.) Since there was no topic regarding this on AVEN, I decided to go ahead and create one myself. I would love to know, which names you see rather often where you live/online/etc. Please keep in mind that this does not mean the names mentioned here are bad or anything, I'm really just interested to know what names appear often in other people's lives! (or in other words: we don't rate names here) You can randomly post one/several name/s or maybe share some for a specific gender if you want (I'm mainly interested in forenames)! Link to post Share on other sites
Still Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 John Smith Link to post Share on other sites
Phalena Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 John, Jack and Maria. Names of biblical protagonists in all languages can fall into this category depending on generation. But those three seem to be all-time favourites (they exist in severall variations, too). For family names things like Johnson (because *-son is again usually a biblical name with the indication of being a descendant). And names like Smith or Baker obviously because they named different occupations at some point. Link to post Share on other sites
Luftschlosseule Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 That's tied to where you are from. My first thought was Max Mustermann, then John Doe, then Mary Sue. Link to post Share on other sites
Phalena Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 19 minutes ago, Luftschlosseule said: That's tied to where you are from. My first thought was Max Mustermann, then John Doe, then Mary Sue. lel Link to post Share on other sites
dgt Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 "Super Hero" cover names are like that: Clark Kent, Diana Prince, Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, etc. Link to post Share on other sites
Astrea Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 There are 'classic' names (like Marie, Louis(e), Alexandre, Pierre...) which are 'generic' but can be considered timeless and which are linked to history (family related or not). And yeah, trends which are big time and social markers. Like 'Lilou' which, to my eternal bewilderement, was given a LOT about ten years ago. Or the 'fruit' names trend which came afterwards. Or the 'name your great-grandparents hated revival' trend... I think the worst social markers are the 'names taken from a tv show / program' when you can't mistake where they are from. I once met 'Brendon' and 'Brenda' twins and yeah... that's tough. I understand not liking your own name (I've never liked mine) but I always take a lot of solace reading the worst names of the year list registered by the civil officials . 2020's just came out and you can be glad you are not called 'Jesus Power', 'Dauphin' (yes, that's 'dolphin' in French) or 'Korona'. One of my friends who is a teacher has a Panpan in his classroom (that's 'Thumper' in French) and Elon Musk called his son X ae A 12... I always wonder what the parents are thinking. Why would you do this to your child? ^^' So yeah, a bit generic ain't so bad. I'd take it over too 'unique' any day 😅 Link to post Share on other sites
Thaliaaaaa Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 1 hour ago, Still said: John Smith Pretty much ^ And, Harry , Tom, Sam, James. Link to post Share on other sites
Real Estate RICO Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 Jimmy BxB Hulk and Akira Tozawa would agree with me on this Link to post Share on other sites
PorcupineOfDoom Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 In Scotland the most common name for guys my age is Calum. In my year group in high school there were about 50 guys, and 8 of them were called Calum. And once I got to uni there were multiple guys with that name in every class - even in one class where there were only 20 people and half of them were from other countries, there were still 2 Scottish guys called Calum. Link to post Share on other sites
Phalena Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 Jonas, Benjamin, Emma and Mia have been quite common children names for a few years now in Germany. There are also, like, a baziilion people named Philipp and Michelle. Link to post Share on other sites
Acerna Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 Andrew, Dylan, Nick - I know at least 4 of them each around my age group, more so when I just think of other people I've heard of Link to post Share on other sites
merkitty Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 David and Kate/Katie come to mind, but a lot of it is generational- for baby boomers, John, Bob, Linda, and Mary are generic, for Gen X, Joe, Karen, and Susan are pretty generic, I'm not sure I can think of generic Millennial names, but Hannah, Emily, Ava, Jake, and Ben are pretty generic Gen Z names. I was also in a class once with 3 Daniels (there were only 6 people in the class), so that was interesting. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 Tom. I know at least 2 dozen Tom's. In my close friendship group all the men are called Tom (seriously, it can be quite confusing). Link to post Share on other sites
ElloryJaye Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 Depends on the culture and the generation. There was not a single John in my year in elementary school, but there were four girls named Natalie (out of ~60 students, so that's more than 10% of the girls), but that wouldn't have happened most places—the town was small, mostly Francophone, and "Natalie" must have been popular the year I was born. So I'd expect to find a lot of "John Smith"s in rural England (also "John Johnson"s and "John Brown"s), but in Japan, I would expect more people named "Tatsuki Yamada" than "John Smith". In Europe and cultures with strong European influence, though, I would expect derivatives of Latin Iohannes (John, Jack, Jean, Ian, Ivan, Evan, Giovanni, Hans . . .) to be the most common first name. Christianity insinuated its way into the name-stocks in most of Europe like a virus, that was the most popular Biblical men's name in a lot of the countries involved, and boys' names tend to be chosen more conservatively than girls'. Petros derivatives (Peter, Pierre, Pedro . . .) and Iacobus derivatives (James, Jim, Jacob, Yakov, Diego . . .) are also common, for similar reasons. In cultures where Islam is prominent, "Mohammed" and variations are going to be the most common of all. (And all of that no doubt sounds like I know more about this than I do. 😅) Link to post Share on other sites
Waist of Thyme Posted January 15, 2021 Share Posted January 15, 2021 13 hours ago, DGT said: "Super Hero" cover names are like that: Clark Kent, Diana Prince, Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, etc. I realize now as I'm about to hit Submit Reply that I misread the post I'm quoting, but I thought people still might enjoy the image. Link to post Share on other sites
Luftschlosseule Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 Oh, oh, oh! For a while, it felt as if I were only meeting people called Chris, Chris in all flavours: Christian, Christopher, just-call-me-Chris and then you had three people who responded to Chris and it was very confusing. Link to post Share on other sites
Bluebellstar Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 Graham, Bruce and Murray are very common where I am. Link to post Share on other sites
Zebrafinch Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 Dave/David is the first one that comes to mind. I know so many Daves that they're known by their surname or their wife's name. There's quite a few Ians, Peters, and Johns as well. And Bens, but they tend to younger. Ben is probably the next Dave. Sue is the only women's name i can think of that's as common. Link to post Share on other sites
daveb Posted January 16, 2021 Share Posted January 16, 2021 4 hours ago, Bluebellstar said: Graham, Bruce and Murray are very common where I am. Even without looking at your location I could tell you weren't from the US. For some reason those names are not so common here. Link to post Share on other sites
ubersnail Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 For context I'm Canadian. For a fictional character, I would say Bob Jones or Jack Smith or something like that. Irl, I know so many guys named Michael. Lots of Daniel's too. For girls, Emma, Anna and Hannah. Link to post Share on other sites
Missing Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 BALZATAROVON GANDORGRAVITUS! Ahem... I mean... I’ve met a lot of people named Mark... Link to post Share on other sites
Kimmie. Posted January 17, 2021 Share Posted January 17, 2021 Lisa, Erik, Lars Look they are all 4 letter names. Link to post Share on other sites
J. van Deijck Posted January 18, 2021 Share Posted January 18, 2021 I would go with Anna. This name exists basically everywhere. Here where I live, most of the men seem to be called Dirk, Mark or Stefan. I know at least 5 of each just in my workplace alone. Link to post Share on other sites
Tintinfan Posted January 18, 2021 Share Posted January 18, 2021 Bob , Sam, Dave James Linda. Link to post Share on other sites
Sherlocks Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 Bob, Larry, scott, steve, karen, luaren, nancy, bella, alice, any form if charlie, Tom n jacob oh and Tony Link to post Share on other sites
Gloomy Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 My name is Sarah, and I've met a crap ton of other Sarahs. I've also known a lot of Ashleys. Link to post Share on other sites
Sam Spade Posted January 19, 2021 Share Posted January 19, 2021 Dan, Allie, Catelyn/Caitlin/Katelyn/Kaitlyn/Kaitlynn (I knew so many Kaitlyns at one point lol), Sharon, Pat, Mark And Sam of course Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.