Kilroy Was Here - Other Names

Other Names

Similar drawings appear in many countries. Herbie (Canada), Overby (Los Angeles, late 1960s), Flywheel, Private Snoops, The Jeep, and Clem (Canada) are alternative names. An advert in Billboard in November 1946 for plastic 'Kilroys' also used the names Clem, Heffinger, Luke the Spook, Smoe and Stinkie. "Luke the Spook", the nose-art on a B-29 bomber of the same name, resembles the doodle and is said to have been created at the Boeing factory in Seattle. In the Australian variant, the character peeping over the wall is not named Kilroy but Foo, as in "Foo was here". In the United Kingdom, such graffiti is known as "Chad" or "Mr Chad". In Chile, the graphic is known as a "sapo" (slang for nosy); this might refer to the character's peeping, an activity associated with frogs because of their protruding eyes. In neighboring Peru, Kilroy is sometimes known as "Julito", which started as a running joke in that country's Foreign Ministry and is often seen scribbled on the whiteboards.

In Poland, Kilroy is replaced with "Józef Tkaczuk", an elementary school janitor (as an urban legend says), "Robert Motherwell" or "M. Pulina". Graffiti writings have the form of sentences like "Gdzie jest Józef Tkaczuk?" ("Where is Joseph Tkatchuk?") and "Tu byłem – Józef Tkaczuk" ("I was here – Joseph Thatchuk"). In Russia, the phrase "Vasya was here" (Russian: Здесь был Вася) is a notorious piece of graffiti.