The name Joe Bloggs or Fred Bloggs is a commonly used placeholder name in United Kingdomteaching, programming, and other thinking and writing. The surnameBloggs on its own is sometimes used in the same way. Fred alone can be a programming placeholder - note that its letters are close together on the standard QWERTY keyboard. Other placeholders (eg in advertisements for store cards/credit cards) sometimes used are Mr/Mrs A Smith or A. N. Other.
In 1985, Shami Ahmed started a clothing company called "The Legendary Joe Bloggs Clothing Company".
Example uses
In The Princeton Reviewstandardized test preparation courses, "Joe Bloggs" represents the average test-taker, and students are trained to identify the "Joe Bloggs answer", or the choice which seems right but may be misleading on harder questions. [1]
In an episode of the TV series Firefly "Joey Bloggs" is the name of a man Malcolm Reynolds uses as part of a cover story, only to find out Joey Bloggs is Miss Khouris' best friend and killed himself several months earlier. The show's Anglophile creator Joss Whedon possibly included it as a joke.
