Common placeholder names in Japanese


In English, when we give an example and it has to contain a person, there are
some **default names** that we resort to, such as John Doe, John Appleseed, or
Alice & Bob. I even found this line on wikipedia about John Doe:

> John Doe (male) and Jane Doe (female) are multiple-use placeholder names
> that are used when the true name of a person is unknown or is being
> intentionally concealed.

In Chinese, there are similar names 張三 and 李四 that we use for the same
purpose. I'd like to know if there are any such placeholder names in Japanese?




As you may know, Japanese has some common family names just like Chinese has 張
or 李. So default names like the following are what you see, for example, in
form templates.

  * 鈴木一郎
  * 山田太郎
  * 山田花子

(Actually 山田 is not **the** common family name, but somehow in this kind of
contexts, the one seen most often.)

These names cannot be used pronoun-like as suggested in the comment, and
another alternative is
[名無しの権兵衛](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%8D%E7%84%A1%E3%81%97%E3%81%AE%E6%A8%A9%E5%85%B5%E8%A1%9B),
whose wikipedia article explicitly mentions John Doe and 張三李四. As far as I can
think of, however, even 名無しの権兵衛 can not be used pronoun-like completely as
John Doe.

Using 名無しの権兵衛 like _someone_ may be possible in some cases, but
もし名無しの権兵衛が法定速度30kmの場所で50km出していたら... sounds weird. Since Japanese can omit
subjects in most cases, it would be more natural not to mention the subject
(or to use simply 誰か to mean _someone_ ).




As you may know, Japanese has some common family names just like Chinese has 張
or 李. So default names like the following are what you see, for example, in
form templates.

  * 鈴木一郎
  * 山田太郎
  * 山田花子

(Actually 山田 is not **the** common family name, but somehow in this kind of
contexts, the one seen most often.)

These names cannot be used pronoun-like as suggested in the comment, and
another alternative is
[名無しの権兵衛](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%90%8D%E7%84%A1%E3%81%97%E3%81%AE%E6%A8%A9%E5%85%B5%E8%A1%9B),
whose wikipedia article explicitly mentions John Doe and 張三李四. As far as I can
think of, however, even 名無しの権兵衛 can not be used pronoun-like completely as
John Doe.

Using 名無しの権兵衛 like _someone_ may be possible in some cases, but
もし名無しの権兵衛が法定速度30kmの場所で50km出していたら... sounds weird. Since Japanese can omit
subjects in most cases, it would be more natural not to mention the subject
(or to use simply 誰か to mean _someone_ ).

