Things

There are several placeholder words for things such as toto, tentononc, udělátko (gadget), bazmek, hejble, blbinec, hajzl etc.

Persons

Jan Novák or Josef Novák for men and Eva Nováková or Marie Nováková for women are Czech versions of John Doe/Jane Doe.

Places

A placeholder name for a distant place is Tramtárie, for a remote village Kotěhůlky or Horní Dolní ("Upper Lower"), for a crazy town Kocourkov etc. Another word for remote place is prdel.

The phrase "kde dávají lišky dobrou noc" (literally, "where the foxes say goodnight") refers to a remote and isolated place, like "the middle of nowhere".^[6]

Things

In Danish a common placeholder word is dims (derived from German Dings), used for small unspecified objects (gadgets). Long, thin and pointy objects may be called javert or javertus, derived from the verb jage in the meaning 'thrust'. Other placeholders for objects are dingenot, dimsedut, dippedut, huddelifut, himstregims, himstregimst and tingest; sager (lit. 'stuff') and grej (lit. 'gear').

Persons

In common parlance and as a placeholder a variety can be used. Navn Navnesen (Name Nameson) is an example.

In civil law A, B, C etc. are used. In criminal law T is used for the accused (tiltalte), V is a non-law enforcement witness (vidne), B is a police officer (betjent) and F or FOU is the victim (forurettede). When more than one a number is added, e.g. V1, V2 and B1, B2.^[7]

Places

Faraway countries are often called Langtbortistan, lit. Farawayistan. Langtbortistan was first used in 1959 in the weekly periodical Anders And & Co as Sonja Rindom's translation of Remotistan.^[8] Since 2001 it has been included in Retskrivningsordbogen as an official Danish word.^[9]

Backwards places in the countryside are called Lars Tyndskids marker, lit. The fields of Lars Diarrhea.^[10] Similarly Hvor kragerne vender, lit. Where the crows turn around may also be used for denoting both a far away and backwards place at the same time.

The expression langt pokker i vold is a placeholder for a place far far away e.g. he kicked the ball langt pokker i vold.^[11]

Things

In Dutch the primary placeholder is dinges (derived from ding, "thing"), used for both objects and persons, and sometimes turned into a verb (dingesen). The diminutive of ding, dingetje (lit. "little thing" or "thingy") serves as a placeholder for objects when used with an article, and for persons without.

In Belgian Dutch you can call a small village 't hol van pluto ('the hole of pluto') or Bommerskonten.

Persons

The equivalent of John Doe for an unspecified (but not an unidentified) person is Jan Jansen ("Jansen" being one of the most common Dutch surnames), or in vulgar speech Jan Lul ("John Dick"); Jan met de korte achternaam ("John with the short surname") is used in the place of Jan Lul to avoid vulgarity. Jan Modaal ("John Average") is the average consumer and Jan Publiek ("John Public") and Jan met de pet ("John with the cap") the man in the street while Jan Soldaat (John Soldier) is the average soldier.

In Belgium, the Dutch name for an unspecified person is sometimes said to be Jef Van Pijperzele, though most people just use Jan Jansen instead. Jef is a common pet form of Jozef. Another pet form is Jos. The average couple may be Mieke en Janneke (Molly and Jenny) or Janneke en Mieke. In 2010 the politician Geert Wilders introduced Henk en Ingrid as to describe the average Dutch couple. For some time, lower class young people were called Sjonnie en Anita.

Elckerlyc (literally 'Every-body' in old Dutch) is a character from a medieval play Elckerlyc en de Dood (Everyman and Death). It is sometimes used to say any mortal.

Places

Obscure, faraway places are Timboektoe (inspired by Dutch Donald Duck comics) and Verweggistan ('Faraway-i-stan'). Lutjebroek, a real village, is also used in this sense. The fictitious village Bommerskonte (also spelled as Bommerskonten) is small, not very important and in Flanders. Bommelskont and Schubbekutteveen are equivalents in the Netherlands.

Numbers

Similar to German, the word for an unknown amount is Tig, used like "umpteen". It stems from the suffix used for double-digit numbers (Twintig twenty, Veertig forty), and is usually used in an aggravated context. Ik heb dat al tig keer geprobeerd! ("I've tried that umpteen times already!").

Persons

"Juan dela Cruz", or simply "Juan", is both a national personification as well as representative of the Filipino everyman whose name as is used as a placeholder name. The negative Hudas is a more colloquial term for people the speaker considers to be a malefactor or treacherous. Si anò (personal singular case marker + "what") or Si ganoón (personal singular case marker + "that") are also used for people whose names are temporarily forgotten by the speaker.

Time

As to time, "kopong-kopong" and "nineteen-forgotten" are playfully derisive terms for anything whose exact year of origin is forgotten, similar to the more "ancient" "panahón (bago) ng mga Hapón" ("time (before) the Japanese") and the even older "Panahón pa ni Matusalém/Mahoma" ("the time of Methuselah/[Prophet] Muhammad)". "Siyám-siyám" (literally "nine-nine") is derisively used for the unknown end of a particularly long time period spent doing something, e.g., "Áabutin ka ng siyám-siyám sa pagkakupad mong iyán!" ("It will take you ages at that pace you're going!").

Things

Härveli one of the most common Finnish placeholder words for technical objects and machinery, it's usually a placeholder for any device which lacks a proper word and often has unknown operating logic, but is useful and has no direct negative association. Hilavitkutin on the other hand is negative and refers to devices that are apparently useless and make no sense. Vehje is a very common thing word for devices and is by default emotionally neutral, but it is also used as slang for the male genital. Laite can be used instead of vehje.

An idiosyncratically Finnish placeholder word is mikälie or mikä lie, literally "whatever (it) may be". It uses the Finnish verb form lie or lienee, meaning "(it) probably is" – i.e., "to be" in the potential mood. This inflected word form is quite rare in everyday speech, which has resulted in its grammatical function being (mis)interpreted by native speakers as a grammatical particle instead of a verb. This, in turn, has given rise to constructions such as mikälie. Analogously persons are kuka lie "whoever he may be", locations missä lie "in wherever", etc.

Juttu has the literal meanings "story", "criminal/court case", or "issue", but may refer to virtually anything inanimate.

Persons

Placeholders for people include the ubiquitous Matti Meikäläinen (male) and Maija Meikäläinen (female), and the relatively less common Anna Malli (literally Anna the Model, but can also be understood as "Give me an example", female) or Tauno Tavallinen ("Tauno the Ordinary", male). In official contexts, the initials N.N. (from the Latin nomen nescio, "name unknown") are used.

Meikäläinen means literally "one of us, one of our side", but sounds similar to a genuine Finnish surname, many of which end in "-lainen/-läinen". Sometimes, Totti Teikäläinen (teikäläinen means "one of you people, one of your side") can be used, where a contrast to Matti Meikäläinen is needed.

The names Matti Virtanen and Ville Virtanen are sometimes also used, because they are said to combine the most common first names and surnames; however, they are also real names for this reason.

The common nouns tyyppi "character" or "figure" via Swedish, kaveri "fellow" and joku "someone" may be used as placeholders for persons. Kaveri is often used in an ironic sense about a known person whose name is unknown, in the same sense as "fellow" is used in English. Tyyppi is usually combined with joku to form joku tyyppi for an unknown character with unknown intentions.

Pihtiputaan mummo ("the grandma from Pihtipudas") is the proverbial least knowledgeable and therefore least capable person to adapt to a new technology, such as the euro or digital TV.

Places

The most common placeholder name for a remote location or a "backwater town" is Takahikiä. Actual locations in Finland that have acquired a similar status include Peräseinäjoki and, to some extent, Pihtipudas, though the latter is mostly associated with the proverbial "grandmother from Pihtipudas" explained above. They are usually spelled with a small initial letter when they are used as placeholder names.

Stereotypical foreign, distant places are Timbuktu and Indokiina. Other places, whose actual coordinates are unknown and obscure, but which clearly are far away, are Himputti, Hornantuutti (chute of Hell), Huitsin-Nevada and Hevonkuusi ("Horse's Spruce" cf. in the sticks).

Numbers

Placeholders for large numbers include ziljoona and biljardi. The latter is a portmanteau of miljardi (10⁹) and biljoona (10¹², see Billion). It has an intentional double meaning, as the word also means "billiards", and can also mean 10¹⁵.

Military usage

In Finnish military slang, tsydeemi traditionally refers to a special type of socks worn during wintertime. However, it has become a common generic placeholder word outside the military, possibly due to its phonetic similarity to the aforementioned systeemi.

In the Finnish Defence Forces, placeholder names for soldiers include Nönnönnöö (no meaning, derived from N.N.), Senjanen (rendered from genitive Senjasen expanding into sen-ja-sen (this-and-that), Omanimi ("Private His-name") and Te ("Private You"). Any weapon, device or piece of equipment is called vekotin. This has actually pointed to the abbreviation VKT, Valtion Kivääritehdas (State Rifle Factory), and referred to light machine gun VKT23, which originally was called vekotin.

Time

Popular expressions for "really long ago" in Finnish include variations of vuonna miekka ja kypärä ("in the year sword and helmet"). Various other words evoking connotation with medieval or even pre-historic times can also be used in the expression.

Things

In French, an unspecified artifact can be:

• bidule (n.m.); this is from military slang for something in disarray. It most probably comes from a dialectal word meaning "mud".
• machin (n.m.), derived from machine
• truc (n.m.), whose primary meaning is trick
• chose (n.f.), thing
• toutim or tout'l'toutim (plural): things, which is an old term and is seldom used nowadays.

Some of these may be combined in several variations, with truc possibly being appended with the meaningless -muche: "machin-truc", "machin-chose", "bidule-truc-muche" are common combinations.

Schmilblick was a placeholder name in a 60s radio game show for a mystery object discovered by asking questions. It gained fame from a well-known sketch by Coluche and is now commonly used for any strange object. The strip series les Schtroumpfs, whose characters (blue midgets) used schtroumpf for any object and schtroumpfer for any action, led to the use of those two as common placeholders, although it is mainly used for persons. This was recast in English as the Smurfs.

Quebec French also has patente, gogosse, cossin, affaire, bebelle and such (most of which have verb forms meaning "to fiddle with"). Acadian French has amanchure, bardasserie and machine. Louisiana French has machine and maniguette.

In Brussels slang, brol is either a heap of random small objects, or a nondescript object of little value.

In computer science research, toto, titi, tata and tutu sometimes replace the English foo and bar as placeholder names for variables, functions and the likes.

Persons

Common placeholder names for people are

• In slang: Tartempion, Machin, Machin-chose, Mec, Trucmuche, Chose-binne, Patante, Duchnoque, Duchmolle; de Machin-Chose to refer to people who carry longish, noble names
• In proceedings and other more formal settings: "X" (Monsieur X), "Y", Monsieur Untel, Madame Unetelle... (see XYZ Affair)
• Pierre-Paul-Jacques or Pierre-Jean-Jacques designates anyone and everyone at the same time, in the third person, in an informal context. The very common Jean Dupont is used the same way as John Doe is in English.
• Monsieur/Madame Tout-le-Monde or Toulemonde (Mr. Everybody), is the average citizen.
• Madame Michu is the average homemaker or (when speaking about technology) a relatively unsophisticated user.
• Lambda, as an adjective, means 'average': le conducteur lambda (the average driver), le citoyen lambda (the average citizen).
• Les Dupont-Durand are the average extended family; they could also be a couple looking for a bargain, e.g. buying an apartment.
• La veuve de Carpentras (the widow from Carpentras, a city in southern France) is the archetypal absolute bear customer in stock exchange literature.
• Pierre et Paul are common characters in jokes. They often appear in mathematical literature about probability theory: many problems begin with Pierre et Paul jouent aux dés (Peter and Paul are throwing dice).
• Toto is also a commonly used name in jokes; when a female character is needed, it is feminized into tata. It is mainly used to evoke a young boy or a naïve person.
• Chose-bottine-pas-d'lacets (in Acadian French) which literally means boot with no laces-guy.

Places

In France:

• Trifouillis-les-Oies (small village)
• Perpète, Perpète-les-Oies, Pétaouchnock or Diable vauvert (for a place that is far away)
• Tombouctou (genuine city name in Mali)
• Bab El Oued (Neighbourhood east of Algiers)
• Tataouine (genuine city name in Tunisia).

In French-speaking Belgium, Outsiplou or even Outsiplou-les-Bains-de-Pieds (Outsiplou-the-footbath) is a generic village of Wallonia. There is an actual but little known village near Liège named Hout-si-Plout, whose name means "Listen whether it rains" in Walloon, and a hamlet named Xhout-si-Plout in Belgian Luxemburg.

Among French people of North African origin (Pieds-Noirs), Foun-Tataouine is the generic village and Tataouine-les-Bains (Tataouine-the-Baths, les-bains is frequent in the name of spa towns) is the average city, possibly from the village of that name in Tunisia.

In Quebec:

Far away rural places:

• Saint-Clinclin, Saint-Meumeu, or Saint-Clinclin-des-Meumeu (far away rural region; "meuh" is the onomatopoeia for mooing)
• Îles Moukmouk (Moukmouk Islands, some far away islands)

Numbers

• Mille et un (one thousand and one) or trente-six (thirty-six) are used for an unknown large number, as in je te l'ai dit trente-six fois (I said it to you umpteen times).
• Quarante-douze (forty-twelve) and trouze mille (probably short for trente-douze mille, thirty-twelve thousand) are used for random numbers and particularly high random numbers respectively.
• Des poussières (some dust specks) can be joined to any number or measure to add an indefinite small amount, as in deux mètres et des poussières (two meters and a bit).
• Trois fois rien (thrice nothing) is used for a very small amount, as in ça m'a couté trois fois rien (I bought it for a song).
• Des patates (some potatoes, slang) and Des brouettes (some wheel-barrows) are variations of Des poussières in increasing amounts.

Things

German also sports a variety of placeholders; some, as in English, contain the element Dings, Dingens (also Dingenskirchen for towns), Dingsda, Dingsbums, cognate with English thing. Also, Kram, Krimskrams, Krempel suggests a random heap of small items, e.g., an unsorted drawerful of memorabilia or souvenirs. Apparillo (from Apparat) may be used for any kind of machinery or technical equipment. In a slightly higher register, Gerät represents a miscellaneous artifact or utensil, or, in casual German, may also refer to an item of remarkable size. The use of the word Teil (part) is a relatively recent placeholder in German that has gained great popularity since the late 1980s. Initially a very generic term, it has acquired a specific meaning in certain contexts. Zeug or Zeugs (compare Dings, can be loosely translated as 'stuff') usually refers to either a heap of random items that is a nuisance to the speaker, or an uncountable substance or material, often a drug. Finally, Sache, as a placeholder, loosely corresponding to Latin res, describes an event or a condition. A generic term used especially when the speaker cannot think of the exact name or number, also used in enumerations analogously to et cetera, is the colloquial schlag-mich-tot or schieß-mich-tot (literally "strike/shoot me dead", to indicate that the speaker's memory fails him/her).

A generic (and/or inferior) technical device (as opposed to i.e. a brand item) is often called a 08/15 (after the WWI-era MG 08 machine gun, whose extensive mass production gave it its "generic" character) pronounced in individual numbers null-acht-fünfzehn.^[15]

Persons

Identity card of Erika Mustermann (Version 2010)

The German equivalent to the English John Doe for males and Jane Doe for females would be Max Mustermann (Max Exampleperson) and Erika Mustermann, respectively. For the former, Otto Normalverbraucher (after the protagonist of the 1948 movie Berliner Ballade, named in turn after the standard consumer for ration cards) is also widely known. Fritz or Fritzchen is often used as a placeholder in jokes for a mischievous little boy (little Johnny), -fritze for a person related to something, as in Fahrradfritze (literally Bicycle Fred, the (unspecified) person who repairs, or is in some way connected to, bicycles). In a similar vein there is Onkel Fritz (lit. Uncle Fred).

There is also Krethi und Plethi, Hinz und Kunz, or Hans und Franz for everybody similar to the English Tom, Dick and Harry if not in a slightly more derogatory way. For many years, Erika Mustermann has been used on the sample picture of German ID cards ("Personalausweis").^[16] In Austria, Max Mustermann is used instead. Sometimes the term Musterfrau is used as the last name placeholder, possibly because it is felt to be more politically correct gender-wise. When referring to an "Average Joe", the names Otto Normalverbraucher and Lieschen Müller (female) are commonly used, corresponding to the American "The Joneses". Otto Normalverbraucher is taken from bureaucratic jargon of post-World War II food rationing via the name of a 1948 film character (played by Gert Fröbe), while the name Lieschen Müller became popular in the year 1961 due to the movie Der Traum von Lieschen Müller. Military jargon also includes Jäger Dosenkohl ("Private Tinned-Cabbage") and Jäger Haumichblau ("Private Beat-Me-Blue") as derogatory placeholders for the name of a (poorly-performing) recruit. In Cologne, Otto (which can also refer to a gadget) and Gerdi are popularly used for men or boys and women/girls with unknown first names. Bert also had some popularity as a placeholder for names in the past.

Places

For remote or exotic locations, Germans use Timbuktu, Buxtehude, Walachei (Wallachia), Weitfortistan (weit fort = far away), wo der Pfeffer wächst ("where the pepper grows"). Other, somewhat derogatory terms for remote locations are Arsch der Welt ("arse of the world") or Arsch der Heide ("arse of the heath"). For towns or villages in the German-speaking world, Kuhdorf or Kuhkaff or just Kaff (lit. "cow village", somewhat derogatory) and Kleinkleckersdorf (lit. "Little-Messy-Village"), Kleinsiehstenich (lit. "Little-you-don't-see-it"), Hintertupfing/Hintertupfingen (usually implies some small, rural and old-fashioned village) or Dingenskirchen (Ding is German for "thing" and -kirchen is a common ending of village names which is derived from Kirche meaning "church"); in Austria Hinterdupfing is also used. Herr X. aus Y. an der Z., which derives from usage in newspapers ("Mr. X from town Y. by the river Z."), is used occasionally. Other terms such as Bad Sonstwo an der Irgend (lit.: "Somewhere-Else Spa upon Whatever [river]") have been suggested. For remote and rural places there is also the term Wo Fuchs und Hase sich gute Nacht sagen (lit. "where fox and hare tell each other good night"). The abbreviation JWD (short for ganz weit draußen in a Berlin accent that replaces /g/ with /j/), meaning "very far away", is used for remote towns or suburbs (far from the city center). Staycations are spent on Balkonien (sounding like a country, "Balconia", but meaning one's balcony) or at Bad Meingarten (sounding like a spa, but mein Garten means "my garden").

Numbers

For abstract large numbers the numeral suffix -zig (as in zwanzig = 20, vierzig = 40, sechzig = 60) is used like 'umpteen': Das habe ich schon zigmal gesagt! ('I already said so umpteen times'). An unknown ordinal number is was-weiß-ich-wievielte/r/s ("what do I know how many-th") or drölf (fictional integer whose name is a portmanteau of the words zwölf, 12, and dreizehn, 13). Exponents of 10 are also used as in English.

Time

For an indefinite point in the (far) past zu/seit Olims Zeiten (lit.: "in/since Olim's Time") may be used, olim being Latin for "once", or Anno Tobak, with Anno taken from Anno Domini and Tobak being an antiquated word for tobacco. Alternatives include anno dazumal, anno dunnemals, and anno Schnee. An indefinite point in the future may be called St. Nimmerleinstag ("feast day of St. Never-Again")

Persons

In Icelandic, the most common placeholder names are Jón Jónsson for men, and Jóna Jónsdóttir for women. The common or average Icelander is referred to as meðaljón (lit. average John).^[21]

In official texts, the abbreviation N.N. (for Latin nomen nescio, "name unknown") may be used. Out of official texts, N.N. is very occasionally (and non-seriously) expanded to Nebúkadnesar Nebúkadnesarson, a name used in the short story "Lilja: Sagan af Nebúkadnesar Nebúkadnesarsyni í lífi og dauða" by Halldór Laxness. It is part of the short-story collection Fótatak manna.

Places

The Icelandic version of the Nordic words for faraway places is Fjarskanistan or Langtíburtistan. This and the other Nordic counterparts come from Donald Duck comic magazines, in which Donald tends to end up in that country if he doesn't play his cards right.

Time

An unspecified or forgotten date from long time ago is often referred to as sautján hundruð og súrkál (seventeen hundred and sauerkraut).^[22]

Things

Common Irish placeholders for objects include an rud úd "that thing over there", an rud sin eile "that other thing", and cá hainm seo atá air "whatever its name is".

Persons

In Irish, the common male name "Tadhg" is part of the very old phrase Tadhg an mhargaidh (Tadhg of the market-place) which combines features of the English phrases "average Joe" and "man on the street".

This same placeholder name, transferred to English-language usage and now usually rendered as Taig, became and remains a vitriolic derogatory term for an Irish Catholic and has been used by Unionists in Northern Ireland in such bloodthirsty slogans as "If guns are made for shooting, then skulls are made to crack. You've never seen a better Taig than with a bullet in his back"^[26] and "Don't be vague, kill a Taig".^[27]

A generic male person can also be called Seán Ó Rudaí ("Sean O'Something", from rud "thing") or Mac Uí Rudaí ("O'Something's son"). Additional persons can be introduced by using other first names and inflecting the family name according to normal Irish conventions for personal names, such as Síle Uí Rudaí ("Sheila O'Something") for a married or elder woman and Aisling Ní Rudaí for a young or unmarried woman.

Paddy, another derogatory placeholder name for an Irish person, lacks the sharpness of Taig and is often used in a jocular context or incorporated into mournful pro-Irish sentiment (e.g. the songs "Poor Paddy on the Railway" and "Paddy's Lament"). By contrast, the term Taig remains a slur in almost every context. Biddy (from the name Bridget) is a female equivalent placeholder name for Irish females.

Also note that the Hiberno-English placeholder names noted above (Yer man, Yer one and Himself/Herself) are long-established idioms derived from the syntax of the Irish language. Yer man and yer one are a half-translation of a parallel Irish-language phrase, mo dhuine, literally "my person". This has appeared in songs, an example of which is The Irish Rover in the words "Yer man, Mick McCann, from the banks of the Bann".

Things

In Italian, standard placeholders for inanimate objects are roba (literally 'stuff'), coso (related to cosa, 'thing'), less commonly affare (literally 'deal' or 'business'), and even less commonly aggeggio ('device' or 'gadget').

Come si chiama (literally 'what's it called') is also used for inanimate objects, expecting to be prompted by the listener with the correct word.

Vattelapesca ("go and catch it"), was once very much used for rare or uncommon objects. Now this term is quite obsolete.

The verb cosare, derived from cosa, is sometimes used as placeholder for any other verb.

Persons

For people, widely used words are again Coso as a substitute for a proper noun, while a generic person is a tizio (see below for the Latin origin of this) or a tipo ('type') as well as uno ('one'). The latter is not accompanied by any article and disappears when used along with a demonstrative; thus, a guy is un tipo or uno, whereas that guy is quel tipo or just quello. The feminine versions are tizia, tipa (colloquial), and una, respectively. In the Venice area one can say Piero Pers ("Peter the Lost") for an unknown person.

Mario Rossi is a generic placeholder for people, especially in examples where first name and family name should appear, like in credit cards advertising. Mario Rossi is formed coupling one of the most used male first names in Italy, with one of the most frequent family names. Maria Rossi is the female equivalent. Other common placeholder names for people are Pinco Pallino and Tal dei Tali.

Also, there are specific terms (from male names common in ancient Rome) for six unnamed people. These terms, from administrative and jurisprudential texts, are Tizio, Caio, Sempronio, Mevio, Filano, and Calpurnio, but only the first three are used in current speech. They are always used in that order and with that priority; that is, one person is always Tizio; two persons are always Tizio e Caio; and three persons are always Tizio, Caio, e Sempronio.

Places

A place far away and out of reach is a casa del diavolo ('at the devil's house') or, more vulgarly, in culo alla luna ('in the moon's butt') or in culo ai lupi ('in the wolves' butt'). The same idea can be expressed by the name of the Sicilian town of Canicattì, as well as by the two regional expressions (mostly confined to Sicily) dove ha perso le scarpe il Signore ('where the Lord lost his shoes') and dove ha perso la camicia Cristo ('where Christ lost his shirt').

Numbers

The most commonly used placeholder for a number is the generic "tot", from the Latin for "many", but which can also be used for small quantities. Other placeholders used for numbers are cinquantaquattro (54), cinquantaquattromila (54,000), and diecimila (10,000). The suffix –anta is used for ages in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s (from quaranta, 40; cinquanta, 50; sessanta, 60; settanta, 70; ottanta, 80; and novanta, 90); thus, the expression essere sui quaranta is used to say that someone is in his or her forties, although the same meaning is also commonly expressed by essere sulla quarantina, and so on along the same pattern (on the model of the suffix –antina).

ICT usage

In information technology, especially in textbooks, a placeholder name for variables is pippo (Disney's Goofy); a second variable can be named pluto, and a third one paperino (Donald Duck).

Names

In Latvian there is no universal placeholder name. Most entities tend to simply use popular real names, such as the male first name Jānis (John) or the common surname Bērziņš (Birch). As alternative "generalized" names, the male name Pēteris (Peter) and surname Kalniņš (Hill) may be used. These are quite popular Latvian names and surnames and there are quite a number of real people bearing these names and surnames. See, for instance, the disambiguation page for Jānis Bērziņš in the Latvian Wikipedia.). For female first names Grieta, Līga and Maija may be used slightly more often than others.

Places

Mazpisāni is a universal placeholder for small town/village located away from civilization. As a contrast location – somewhat larger, still quite remote – Lielpisāni may be used. Literally these two are translated as "Smallfuck" and "Bigfuck". Also Viķenpicka may be used as a placeholder name for remote town. Dievs vien zin kur ("God only knows where") may also be used.

People

"Si fulan" and "fulanah" are classical Malay terms for anonymous or unknown people.

In modern Malay, "mat" and "minah" are used in slang for generic people.

The name "Ali bin Abu" is also used as a placeholder name especially when displaying images of ICs.

Places

In Malay, the term "tempat jin bertendang" (the place where the jinn-spirits gather) is used for "the middle of nowhere". This is especially used in the Sarawak, Johor, and Kelantan dialects and nearby Indonesian.

In classical Malay literature, the expression "negeri berantah-antah" means "in a place that is unknown".

Common nouns

In Polish, the most popular placeholders are to coś (literally meaning "this something", a widget), cudo ("miracle"), dynks (from the German Ding – regional, specific to the region of Wielkopolska, also used in Silesia where it is spelled dinks), wihajster (from the German Wie heißt er? "What's its name?") and a general placeholder ten teges or, even more often ten tego (lit. "this" in nominative and genitive), which can also be used as a filled pause. There are also other terms, such as elemelek, pipsztok or psztymulec, but they are much less common. Also used are dzyndzel (equivalent to dynks) and knefel (similar to frob, unknown object that can be adjusted or manipulated). For a semi-jocular term equivalent to "contraption" the Russian loan word ustrojstwo (Russian устройство "arrangement, mechanism") is often employed. Amongst young people sometimes całe te is used, literally meaning "all those", which is a phrase often used by comedian Wojciech "Major" Suchodolski (1974-2023).

Places

In press, to avoid details, journalists use the initial letter of a given name of a town, not especially the right one, with N. as predominant. The generic name for a village or a remote small town is Pipidówka, or its more derogatory version Pipidówa. A vulgar, but frequently used term to describe a small and dull place is Zadupie (lit. "somewhere behind the arse") or Zacipie (lit. "somewhere behind the cunt") which is an equivalent of English shithole. Sometimes, although rarely, Pacanów can also be used (almost always in a jocular sense), which has the same meaning as American English Dullsville, but is actually a little town in central Poland.

A more picturesque descriptions include the common phrase gdzie psy ogonami (dupami) szczekają ("where dogs bark with their tails (arses)"), or gdzie diabeł mówi "dobranoc" ("where the devil says goodnight"). An unspecified place situated far from the speaker is called Za górami, za lasami ("over the mountains, over the forests"). Other terms include Pcim Dolny ("Lower Pcim", a non-existent quarter of a village of Pcim) and Kozia Wólka (lit. "Goat's Wolka", Wola and Wólka being frequent names of Polish villages). The typical place of a Polish joke is Wąchock – a small town in Świętokrzyskie in Eastern Poland.

The road leading to any place is sometimes called Droga na Ostrołękę, after the popular Polish film Rejs. Another, vulgar term, is w pizdu (actually a Russian loan word) meaning "somewhere far away" (lit. "into the cunt"). To say that something takes place in the whole country or is simply widespread, Polish native speakers employ phrases like Od Helu do Tatr ("from the Hel to the Tatras"), Od Bałtyku do Tatr ("from the Baltic to the Tatras"), the equivalent of "Land's End to John o' Groats" or "from Orkney to Penzance" in UK English, or "coast to coast" in the USA.

Persons

A proposed new Polish driving license issued to "Jan Kowalski".

A universal placeholder name for a man is Jan Kowalski (kowal meaning "(black)smith"); for a woman, Anna Kowalska. A second unspecified person would be called Nowak ("Newman"), with the choice of first name being left to the author's imagination, often also Jan for a man; this surname is unisex. Jan is one of the most popular male first names in Polish, and Kowalski and Nowak are the most popular Polish surnames.

Like in mathematics, the letter x ("iks") is used – an imaginary person can be called Iksiński. Mostly in the spoken language, one can hear the fictional name Pipsztycki (fem. Pipsztycka). In logical puzzles fictitious surnames frequently follow a pattern: they start with consecutive letters of Latin alphabet followed by the same ending: Abacki, Babacki, Cabacki etc. for men, Abacka, Babacka, Cabacka etc. for women. In official documents however, an unidentified person's name is entered as NN (abbreviation of Nazwisko Nieznane – name unknown, Nieznany Nam – unknown to us, or Nomen Nescio). Informally, to describe any unknown person, the phrase taki jeden (lit. "such a one") is in common use.

The military slang term for an unknown person is the acronym HGW, standing for vulgar Chuj go wie (lit. "a cock knows him"). Other slang terms include koleś (lit. "mate, pal"); facet or demunitive facio ("guy, bloke") with the feminine forms facetka, facia; and typ, typek (a type) with its corresponding feminine form typiara recently gaining wider usage. Also widespread are gość (lit. "guest") with its derived forms gostek and gościu and a new fashionable word ziomal or ziom (which roughly equates to the American "homie").

Numbers

Any number can be replaced with X. An indefinite number roughly between 11 and 20 can be kilkanaście (from kilka, "a few", and -naście, the common suffix for numerals from 11 to 19); similarly kilkadziesiąt (-dziesiąt being the common suffix for multiples of ten from 50 to 90) is popular for indefinite numbers larger than 20 but less than 100. These are occasionally shortened to naście and dziesiąt, respectively.

The general word for a large amount is masa (lit. "mass", as in "a mass of errors"). Popular slang expressions are od cholery (roughly equivalent to English "hell of a lot"), od cholery i ciut ciut ("hell of a lot and a little"), and od groma (lit. "from a thunder"). Vulgar terms include w kurwę and od chuja. For very big numbers one sometimes sees the term pierdylion (lit. "fartillion" / "fucktillion") or pierdyliard.

Also the phrase tysiąc pięćset sto dziewięćset (tysiąc + pięćset + sto + dziewięćset = "one thousand" + "five hundred" + "one hundred" + "nine hundred") is often used for any large number (which value may not be known precisely).

For the approximate ending of an especially large number or an undefined decimal fraction of any number bigger than one, the expression z hakiem (lit. "with a hook" meaning "and something") is widespread; sometimes, not only in expressions related to money, one can say z groszami (lit. "with Groschen"; compare English and change).

Among younger generations the number 2137 is used for any random number. It refers to the hour of the death of John Paul II.

Verbs

The verb tentegować (ten + tego + -wać (action postfix) = "that" + "of this" + " do") can refer to any action.^[33] Various prefixes (roz-, prze-, przy-) can be used to narrow down its meaning.

Things

Common placeholders for objects in Brazilian Portuguese are treco, troço, bagulho, parada, coisa, trem and negócio, among others. In European Portuguese coiso (masculine of coisa, thing, and not a real word) or cena are often used. In the 2000s, coiso ("thingy") has also been borrowed as slang into Brazilian Portuguese, mainly among the young. Bicho (lit. "beast") is used when the specific animal species is unknown, but also is a reference to any living thing whose name does not come to mind or is not of interest.

Persons

Placeholder names for people are usually Fulano (optionally surnamed de Tal), Sicrano and Beltrano, and the corresponding feminines (Fulana, Sicrana, Beltrana). Não-sei-quê/quem/onde/quando/das quantas are quite used as well. In both countries (but quite outmoded in Brazil), João das Couves, Zé das Couves, José dos Anzóis or Zé da Silva are also used, the feminine being Maria (instead of José, which is also often abbreviated to Zé). João Ninguém or Zé Ninguém are used for someone who is unimportant.

Tio and Tia (uncle and aunt respectively) can be used to refer to any unspecified male or female. It is also used between friends to call each other (equivalent to "Hey, you!").

Places

In European Portuguese, one can use the terms "Cu de Judas" (Judas' Ass) and "Cascos de Rolha" (Cork Hull) for remote, isolated and/or rural areas, as in "Lá para Cascos de Rolha" ("somewhere along Cork Hull") or "Ela vive no Cu de Judas" ("She lives in Judas' Ass"). For faraway places, the term Cochinchina is employed both in Brazil and Portugal, and, despite being an actual place, is used in a generic way as a placeholder for somewhere far away. In Brazilian Portuguese two similar terms for distant places are used, "Onde Judas bateu as botas" ("Where Judas died") and "Onde Judas perdeu as botas" ("Where Judas lost his boots") and even further "Onde Judas perdeu as meias" ("Where Judas lost his socks", after he lost his boots).

Numbers

Tal and poucos when used with another word means "something". For example, "trinta e tal euros" means "thirty-something euros", while "trinta e poucos reais" means "thirty-something reais". It can also be used for years: "Em mil novecentos e oitenta e tal" means "In nineteen-eighty-something". Another form is "tantos" , such as "trinta e tantos anos" meaning "thirty-something" referring to years of age or an uncertain period of years.

Another informal Brazilian placeholder name for numbers, particularly those considered big, either as superlative or in quantities really grueling to count manually, is trocentos e.g. "Aquela patricinha, ela tem não imagino quantos trocentos sapatos e vestidos", which roughly translates as "That clueless wealthy girl, I can not imagine how many trocentos of shoes and dresses she owns". Trocentos is a jocular way of saying trezentos (three hundred).

Actions

The verb coisar (formed by a derivation of coisa, "thing") is often used to replace any verb that expresses actions.

Universal

A large number of placeholder words for people, things, and actions are derived from Russian profanity (mat), as may be found in multiple dictionaries of Russian slang.^[34]

An informal placeholder (for persons, places, etc.) is "такой-то" ("takoy-to" (masculine form; feminine: takaya-to; neuter: takoye-to), meaning "this or that", "such and such", etc.).

Things

In Russian, among the common placeholder names are это самое (this particular [object]), штука (thing; diminutive forms also exist), ботва (leafy tops of root vegetables), фигня (crud), хреновина (same meaning as the previous one, but slightly less offensive, related to horseradish sauce).

A term for something awkward, bulky and useless is бандура (bandura, an old Ukrainian musical instrument, big and inconvenient to carry). A placeholder for a monetary unit is тугрик (Tögrög, the monetary unit of Mongolia).

Persons

A historical placeholder for a personal name used in legal documents and prayers is "имярек" ("imyarek"), derived from the archaic expression "imya rek" meaning "having said the name". The word entered into a common parlance as well.

To refer to an unknown person, the words "nekto", "kto-to", etc., equivalent to "someone", are used, as in "Someone stole my wallet".

Placeholders for personal names include variations on names Иван (Ivan), Пётр (Pyotr/Peter), and Сидор (Sidor), such as Иван Петрович Сидоров (Ivan Petrovich Sidorov) for a full name, or Иванов (Ivanov) for a last name; deliberately fake name-patronymic-surname combinations use one of them for all three, with the most widely used being Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov. Вася Пупкин (Vasya Pupkin) or Василий Пупкин (Vasiliy Pupkin) is also (jokingly, because the family name resembles the Russian word for navel, пупок (pupok)) used as a generic name.

Words like молодой человек (young man), девушка (young woman), гражданин (citizen), уважаемый (respected one) are common second-person placeholders. More informal second-person placeholders are парень (young man, dude), товарищ (comrade), бродяга (wanderer or rather bum), трудяга (working man), чувак (dude), друг/подруга (friend masc./fem.). All these terms have their own meaning as well. The term уважаемый, which is an equivalent of "dear" in formal letters, is most commonly used as a placeholder by migrant workers from southern FSU countries when they are speaking Russian.

Дорогой/дорогая (dear), милый/милая (cutie), любимый/любимая (beloved) are placeholder terms for someone's lover or spouse. Then may also be used as second-person placeholders, but this is considered very informal. Благоверный/благоверная (literally "keeping faith") are placeholder names for legal spouses.

Седьмая вода на киселе (sed'maya voda na kisele, seventh water on kissel) denotes very far relatives.

Тумба-юмба (tumba-yumba) and мамбу-нямбу (mambu-nyambu) are placeholder names for a tribal person, as well as for primitive tribes themselves. Чунга-чанга (chunga-changa) originally had the same meaning, but now it is mostly associated with a children's song of the same name.

Dzhamshut is a derogative placeholder for guest-workers from southern FSU countries.

Animals

Most common names of pets and farm animals can be used as placeholder names for those animals, such as Murzik for cats, Sharik for dogs and Buryonka for cows. In written texts, these names may be decapitalized when they are used as placeholder names.

Places

• One of the most commonly used phrases is у чёрта на куличках (lit. "at the devil's allotment"), which is roughly equal to English "at the world's end" and "in the back of beyond". The vulgar equivalent of this phrase is в жопе мира (literally "in the ass of the world").
• Various city names are often employed as placeholders. For instance, to denote a remote, obscure place:
  • Тьмутаракань (Tmutarakan, an ancient Crimean city which sounds in modern Russian something like "dark cockroach city", тьма таракан)
  • Зажопинск (Zazhopinsk, "city beyond the ass")
  • Мухосранск (Mukhosransk, "fly shit city").
• The capital of the Russian backwoods is Урюпинск (Uryupinsk, a town in central Russia), although recently Бобруйск (Babruysk, a Belarusian city) has gained its popularity in the Russian Internet community.
• Куда Макар телят не гонял ("Where Makar didn't drive the calves"), a dated phrase that means "far-far away" or "somewhere you won't like".
• In some occasions in literature (a novel by famous Russian and Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol) unknown or deliberately unidentified places are referred to as ...ское место (featuring a widespread adjective ending ской).
• Latin N is sometimes used as a placeholder for the actual name of the site, e.g. город N ("city N").

Things

• sokoćalo used for mechanical devices of unknown purpose.
• džidžabidže (pl.), used for small objects.

Persons

• Petar Petrović or the shorter version Pera Perić are used as a John Doe placeholder name
• Jugovići (pl.), addressing to Serbs or other "Yugoslav" (members of ex-Yugoslavian ethnic groups)
• askurđel used colloquially for an unknown very distant and obscure relative, i.e. a progenitor of a large family.
• During the 2010s, it became increasingly popular to use Srba or Srbenda as a typical nickname for a male member of the Serbian nation, especially in jokes and Internet memes.

Places

• Tungusia is used to represent far and unknown country.

Things

There are numerous expressions meaning "bullshit", that can be interchangeably used as placeholder names for things – these can be either colloquial, derived from names of farm animals (konina, kravina, volovina, somarina – derived from horse, cow, ox, donkey respectively), or obscene, derived from obscene names for genitalia (kokotina, chujovina, pičovina – derived from cock, cock, cunt respectively). Dzindzík and čudlík are used as a placeholder for (control) elements of various devices. It is often used interchangeably with bazmek (derived from Hungarian "baszd meg" meaning 'fuck it') which can also be used to refer to entire devices or machines.

Persons

The most common placeholder for a full personal name is Jožko Mrkvička (lit. "Joe Little Carrot"). The most common placeholder name for an unknown man is týpek (borrowed from Czech), meaning "dude". This term is used mostly by young people. Ujo (uncle) and teta (aunt) are also commonly used to address unknown adults, mainly by children.

Places

The standard placeholder for a place name is Horná Dolná (lit. "Upper Lower", a reference to common village names of form "Upper Something" / "Lower Something". It is often used in derogatory fashion to indicate a tiny and remote village (compare US English Hicksville). Remote places can be denoted as Tramtária, or v riti (in an asshole). For remote and rural places there are also the terms kde líšky dávajú dobrú noc ("where foxes say good night"), na konci sveta ("at the end of the world") or zapadákov or Vyšná Diera pod Sráčom (Upper Hole under the Shitter).

In fairy tales, za siedmimi horami ("over the seven mountains") is commonly used for an unfamiliar faraway place.

Time

• Indefinite time in the past:
  • tiempos de Maricastaña, "times of Maricastaña", probably in reference to María Castaña, a little known 14th century woman.^[35]
  • cuando reinó Carolo, "when Charles reigned". The origin is unclear, the most viable hypothesis is that it refers to Charles III of Spain: on a frontispiece of a gate in Alcalá de Henares in the Community of Madrid there used to be an inscription "REGE CAROLO III ANNO MDCCLXXVIII". While the king ruled in 18th century, the romanization of the text gave an impression of antiquity.^[35]

Spanish (Europe)

Spanish (Latin America)

Feria, thus turning "thirty and change" into "treinta y feria" is used in Mexican Spanish.

Carajo is commonly used only among Central and South American Spanish speakers when referring to an unknown and/or unpleasant place, hence vete pa'l carajo (go to el carajo) may translate as "go to hell" or "get lost".

Mexican Spanish speakers use the words chingadera ("fuckery") or madre (lit. mother), not to be used in polite circumstances, also mierda which in most contexts has the same function as the word 'shit' in English, as does güey (from buey) used between young people to refer each other. Cabrón is used to name someone you don't know or remember, but is mildly offensive, depending on the context, because it means cuckold. It is considered an insult in Spain. Cabrón means "male goat",(from cabra with an augmentative suffix -on) but it's usually used as an insult.

In Chilean and Peruvian Spanish the word hue'ón(a) (from huevón, from huevo ("egg"), a euphemism for testicle) is often used when referring to unspecified individuals or friends in a casual context. Also, huevón is considered an insult when used unproperly. The word hue'á (from huevada) is used to refer to unspecified actions or objects.

Vaina is word commonly used by Dominicans and Venezuelans to refer to any object; its usage is similar to "thingy" or "stuff". It can be a very crude word elsewhere in the Caribbean.

Things

Swedish has a large vocabulary of placeholders: Sak, grej, pryl, mojäng/moj (from French moyen) and grunka are neutral words for thing. Some plural nouns are grejsimojs, grunkimojs, grejs and tjofräs, which correspond to thingamabob, and the youth loan word stuff, which is pronounced with the Swedish u. Apparat (or, more slangy, mackapär) more specifically refers to a complex appliance of some kind, much like the German Gerät. More familiarly or when openly expressing low interest, people use tjafs or trams (drivel) and skräp or krams (rubbish). Like in English, various words for feces can be used: skit (crap) and bajs (poop) are standard, well known local variations are mög, bös and dret. Vadhannuhette and vaddetnuhette correspond to whatshisname and whatchamacallit respectively, except that Swedes use the past tense. Det där du vet means "that thing you know". Den och den (that and that) corresponds to so and so. Gunk may refer to any fairly large quantity of unwanted substance or objects of varied or indeterminate identity, much like the English "junk".

Persons

The closest Swedish equivalent of John Doe in Swedish is the formal N.N. (Latin nomen nescio, "name unknown").

Common first names infrequently used as placeholders are "Kalle" for boys and "Lisa" for girls.

More in use is the equivalent of the collective term Average Joe: Medelsvensson. Medel is Swedish for 'medium' or 'average', and Svensson is a common Swedish surname.

"Tolvan Tolvansson" is a fictitious person who is used in Swedish health care for educational purpose with personal identity number 121212+1212.

Swedish journalists also have an equivalent for John Doe when referring to the average reader: "Nisse i Hökarängen."

In more formal text the abbreviation N.N. (for Latin nomen nescio, "name unknown") is sometimes used.

Places

Placeholder names in Swedish are colorful: Someplace far away can be called Tjotaheiti (which is derived from Otaheiti, an older, alternate nameform^[39] of Tahiti) or Långtbortistan (Farawaystan) a play on -stan created in the Swedish edition of Donald Duck.

Numbers

A common term for any large or unknown number is femtioelva (fifty-eleven).

People

For people, commonly-used names and surnames are used to represent generic people, such as Mykola, Volodymyr, Oleksandr, and Ivan for given names, and Melnyk, Shevchenko, Kovalenko, and Tkachenko. The given and family names are often mixed up to make the subject more random.

"постражда́лий" ("victim") and "невідомий" ("unknown") are also commonly used for generic people.

Places

In Ukrainian, random places within Ukraine are used to represent a generic location.

The words звідкілясь ("somewhere"), хтозна-звідки ("who knows where"), чортзна-де ("wherever the hell is that") are specifically used for places the speaker doesn't know.

Objects

я́к його́ (там) refers to something the speaker doesn't know.