On Being John: The Fascinating History of a Popular Name

Whether talking about a toilet, a person soliciting prostitutes, or an unknown person, the name John is a prime example of how a name can take on a vast range of meanings. How does a common name become associated with so many other things?

John’s etymological history

As a given name, John came into English around the twelfth century from Old French Jehan (or Jean in modern French). The name originally derives from Hebrew Yohanan, meaning “God is gracious,” but had wound its way first through Greek and Latin before arriving in French.

While often assumed to be a shortened form of the name Jonathon, the two names are actually not from the same Hebrew word, with Jonathon instead descending from Hebrew Yohatan, meaning “God has given.”

In its earliest English use, John took the form of Johan, which was said with two syllables, but, during the Middle English period (twelfth to fifteenth centuries), was shortened to today’s single syllable pronunciation of John.

John’s social history

John was already an extremely popular given name by the thirteenth century. It is, in fact, this long-standing popularity that likely gave rise to its use as a generic name for different types of things and people.

As early as 1392, the name was used in texts as a term to refer to a generic man, particularly when discussing what we might today call “an average joe.” Likewise, the name Jack, a pet name or informal form used alongside the name John since at least the thirteenth century, was similarly used in this fashion.

By the 1500s, both names were used to refer generically to people of lower status, as we see the name Jack used in Shakespeare’s A Taming of the Shrew, “A mad-cap ruffian, and a swearing Jack.”

The flushing kind of John

For the flushing kind of "John"

Source: Alexa/Pixabay

While John is sometimes used to refer to a toilet today, it is the name Jack that seems to have started the bathroom ball rolling. Though John Harrington, the inventor of the flushing toilet, is often claimed to have been the namesake for such usage of John, it seems like Jack was the original name he used for a john.

Harrington had garnered quite a reputation of being a bit cheeky and risqué, and his behavior caused him to frequently fall out of favor with his godmother, Queen Elizabeth I. He had, however, been in her good graces when he installed one of his flushing inventions in her palace, but it didn’t shield him from getting banished for showing her ladies-in-waiting some naughty translations of an Italian poem.

Harrington himself actually used the term “Ajax” to refer to his own invention, a spin on “a jacks,” which was a riff on the slang name (i.e., Jack) for toilet at the time. However, given the interchangeable use of John and Jack as generic terms for men of lower status – and Harrington’s impetuous and crude reputation – it’s not surprising that John came to be the stand-in term for Jack over time.

Becoming a “john”

Flushing toilets aside, the name John is often used as a generic term for those who frequent prostitutes. It is also its ubiquity as a name that seems to have inspired this usage.

First appearing in the early twentieth century, this use of John is much more recent than its use for a toilet, and it is primarily an American usage.

Given how common a name it was, using John as a stand in for one’s real first name seems to have been an effort to preserve anonymity for men seeking out such services, especially when writing down a name on a hotel ledger.

Over time, it became not just a name used by such men, but also as a specific label by which they were called.

John Doe

Finally, we have one last John that is so well known, almost everyone has heard of him, though no one seems to really know him: John Doe. Like the previous John, this usage to name an unknown person is also an outgrowth of its prevalence and the name's ability to stand in for “any man.”

John Doe used in this way first appeared in Britain as far back as the fourteenth century during the reign of Edward III as the name of fictitious litigants in a legal proceeding known as actions of ejectments. The word “Doe,” which back then also meant female deer, was probably used as the last name because it wasn’t a likely surname, avoiding the danger of using John Smith or John Adams, of which there were many.

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This practice of using a common name for a fictitious person in legal matters was a continuation of a practice that started during Roman times, where the stand-in names Aulus Agerius (for plaintiffs) and Numerius Negidius (for defendants) were often used.

One name, many faces

The popularity of John as a first name over the centuries has led to its myriad of meanings. Luckily, most Johns we know have nothing to do with toilets or prostitution, which is probably why the name continues to be fruitfully employed over the generations.