John Q. Public

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John Q. Public is a generic name used to refer to a hypothetical typical member of society, particularly in the USA.

He is presumed to have no strong political or social biases relevant to whatever topic is at hand, and to represent the randomly selected "man on the street". He is also known as John Q. Citizen. Also roughly equivalent are John Doe, Joe Six-pack, and Joe Schmoe. Female equivalents include Jane Q. Public, Jane Winecooler, and Ann Yone (from anyone).

In Internet culture, the generic name of choice is J. Random Something, for instance J. Random Hacker (MIT, 1960s) to refer to an arbitrary hacker or programmer. This formation is thought to be taken from the name of J. Presper Eckert, builder of one of the first digital computers. [1]