Jan Kowalski (placeholder name)

Look up Jan Kowalski in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
A specimen of Polish driving licence bearing the name of Jan Kowalski.
A specimen of Karta Polaka bearing the name of Jan Kowalski.

In Polish culture, Jan Kowalski is a placeholder name for an average Polish person, the meaning being similar to "Average Joe".

The surname Kowalski/Kowalska is the second most common surname in Poland (140,471 people in 2009), with the leader being Nowak (207,348 in 2009).[1]

The name is close to John Smith, both in translation and in the metonymic meaning of averageness,[2][3] although a more literal translation would be "John Smithson", as -ski is a patronymic suffix in Polish-language surnames. Analogous names in other languages include Jean Lefèvre, Giovanni Ferrari, Ivan Kuznetsov, Sean McGowan, Hans Schmidt, Kovács János, etc.[4]

  1. ^ Ministry of Interior (Poland). Statystyka najpopularniejszych nazwisk występujących w Polsce in 2009 Archived 2013-09-28 at the Wayback Machine (The most popular surnames in Poland in 2009). Retrieved 2013-02-28.
  2. ^ Zagratzki, Uwe (2018). Disrespected Neighbo(u)rs. Cultural Stereotypes in Literature and Film. p. 203. ISBN 9781527514751.
  3. ^ International Free Trade Union News Volumes 7-9, 1952, [1]
  4. ^ Robert Claiborne, Our Marvelous Native Tongue. The Life and Times of the English Language, 1983, ISBN 0812910389, p. 144