I don’t mean a direct translation, but rather a common and/or “stereotypical” last name that is generally used as the equivalent of “Smith” in English.
Sharma – India
The all-powerful “Sharma-ji ka beta” (“Mr. Sharma’s son”) is Indian parents’ go-to standard for their children
Literally it would be Kowalski, which is stereotypical common surname. Another common one is Nowak (meaning newguy vaguely).
In Denmark it would be Nielsen and Jensen and first name would be Anne or Peter.
Peter Petersen, Jens Jensen and Niels Nielsen are not uncommon combinations.
Jens Jensen is actually the most common name in Denmark for men and for women it is Kirsten Jensen.
Jens got around it seems
Korean: 홍길동 (Hong Gil Dong) for “John Smith”, usually seen on form samples
Sanchez or Garcia for Spanish probably
Sazuki is common in Japan.
In Mexico, who adds a bunch of Spanish speakers, it would be Hernandez before those two. Lopez would also be up there.
Oh yeah Hernandez. Can’t believe I forgot that one.
In Italy, it is Rossi. Mario Rossi is the most common first name/last name combination.
In Russia, Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov. I don’t know why they love so much Johannes from the Bible.
No way it’s Popa in Romania. Popescu is an insanely common name, by far the most common I’ve heard.
Janssens and Peeters in Belgium (Flemish region)
Janssen or Jansen (without that final s) is also the default last name in the Netherlands
In the north you find a lot of de Vries (the… frosty? There’s an origin story involving Napoleon that I don’t know whether it’s correct)
Regarding Peeters, a crush of mine was called Peters, in Dutch Limburg. Besides that I don’t know the name so I’d guess it’s uncommon here
Nguyễn - Vietnam
Pronounced “win” with a slight N sound before, for anyone else wondering
Schmitt (Germany)
Or Müller (=Miller)
German also has Mustermann (“Muster” meaning template)
We don’t have that in the Netherlands or in English afaik and would use something like Smith, that is Janssen in our case. Of course you could also see something like “Last_name” or “Example” in the place of a last name field, but it doesn’t look like a name the way that yours does
‘Mustermann’ is more like an artificial placeholder name, that gets used on facsimilies of passports and drivers licenses used as example illustrations.
“Muster” in that context also means something that is only for demonstration purposes, not the real deal. That word is also printed across prints of Euro-bills when they are depicted somewhere in order to avoid charges for producing counterfeit money.
Afaik there are actual people with that last name, but that’s pretty rare.
I was thinking Mustermann is more like John Doe in that regard, but John Doe is also used for a hypothetical regular, average person and we have “Otto Normalverbraucher” for that use-case. (“Normalverbraucher” literally means ‘normal consumer’, no real person has a name like that)
OP’s question is aimed more at a last name, that is very common and stereotypical, almost boring. While the close translation of Smith Schmitt/Schmidt/Schmid also fulfills that criteria the even more regular one would be Müller and Mayer (or one of its spelling varieties)
Those three names are so common that “Müller-Mayer-Schmidt” has become another phrase used to refer to the average citizen archetype.
Isn’t it usually Schmidt? Or is there a regional difference?
It’s a regional/religious difference. In the southern more Catholic regions it’s mostly Schmitt and in the northern more Protestant regions it’s mostly Schmidt.
I think just similar names.
In Austria Maier is very common, but also Meier, or Mayer.
Silva - Brasil
Tremblay - Québec, Canada
On a tangent, Paul Tremblay the author had one of the most disappointing collections of short stories after a few excellent novels. It was so bad I couldn’t finish it.
Don’t forget hyphenated last names. The number of “long last name - another long last name” Quebec names I’ve seen is astounding.
I think its a thing where the default is to combine names instead of the wife assuming the husband’s name. Not sure if its true but a French person told me so I’ve been running with that. Seems like a dangerous game where last names grow in size exponentially. Then one day they have to reset to one name, but everyone gets to pick their own name again.
“sigh No, I’m Terence Shrewsbury-McEllen-Smith-Harper-Thomas-Capote. You’re looking for Terence Shrewsbury-McEllen-Harper-Thomas-Capote-Smith.”
“No, we’re not related.”
chuckles in Tremblay-Laroche-Gagnon-Roy-Bouchard-Fortin
première fois, mon ami?
Kim for Korea
Kalējs, Kalvis, Kovalenko, Kuznetsov are some that I know around here.
Kuznetsov is a bit of an exception, it’s from the word кузня (kuznja) meaning forge. Koval would be Smith.
Many people whose last name was Kovalenko became Kovalyov during Russification in Soviet Union.
‘Kuznets’ means smith too. The difference is that kuznets is borrowed from Church Slavonic, while koval is authentically East Slavic.
иванов/иванова (ivanov/a) is common, кузнецов/а (kuznetsov/a) is “smith”
Иван Иванович Иванов весь день ходит без штанов. Иванов Иван Иванович надевает штаны на ночь.
Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov goes without pants all day. Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich puts on his pants at night.
