John Doe

John Doe, along with Jane Doe and J. Doe, is a placeholder name used in the legal systems of Britain, Canada and the United States when the true identity of a person is unknown or deliberately withheld, and American law enforcement often applies the same names to unidentified deceased persons. The names serve as a hypothetical everyman figure and appear in case titles for anonymous plaintiffs or defendants, letting proceedings go forward while identity remains protected or unresolved. The usage dates to Middle Ages England, with John Doe and Richard Roe standard in English legal instruments by at least the reign of Edward III, originally to satisfy technical pleading requirements in property cases. The practice became obsolete in the United Kingdom in 1852 but remains common in American courts, and the term John Doe injunction still describes English cases against unknown defendants threatening to disclose confidential information. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/