Latin
In Latin the word res (thing) is used. Some Latin legal writers used the name Numerius Negidius as a John Doe placeholder name; this name was chosen in part because it shares its initials with the Latin phrases (often abbreviated in manuscripts to NN) nomen nescio, "I don't know the name"; nomen nominandum, "name to be named" (used when the name of an appointee was as yet unknown); and non nominatus/nominata, "not named".
Formal writing in (especially older) Dutch uses almost as much Latin as the lawyer's English, and, for instance, "N.N." was and is commonly used as a "John Doe" placeholder in class schedules, grant proposals, etc.
Emperor Justinian's codification of Roman law follows the custom of using "Titius" and "Seius" as names for Roman citizens, and "Stichus" and "Pamphilus" as names for slaves.
Read more about this topic: Erika Mustermann
Famous quotes containing the word latin:
“OUR Latin books in motly row,
Invite us to our task—
Gay Horace, stately Cicero:
Yet there’s one verb, when once we know,
No higher skill we ask:
This ranks all other lore above—
We’ve learned “’Amare’ means ‘to love’!””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“He tries by a peculiar speech to speak
The peculiar potency of the general,
To compound the imagination’s Latin with
The lingua franca et jocundissima.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Is there no Latin word for Tea? Upon my soul, if I had known that I would have let the vulgar stuff alone.”
—Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953)