John Doe on His Unusual Moniker: ‘Good for Parties, Bad for Border Crossings’
by Oliver Saria
Asians are notorious for inflicting horrible names on their unsuspecting children who must later endure schoolyard taunts because their parents decided “Hitler Manila” (google it) had a nice ring to it. John Doe (yes, that is his legal name and, no, don’t bother googling it) has no one to blame but himself.
The 41-year-old Korean émigré who currently works as a software engineer in New York was actually born Jang Do, but decided to start going by the Americanized “John Doe” when he was in grade school. His classmates thought nothing of it even after they found “John Doe” in the dictionary, not fully comprehending the name’s import. By the time he became a naturalized citizen in the sixth grade under the name John Doe, everyone in his small Pennsylvania town of Havertown had already gotten used to it. It wasn’t until college at Carnegie Mellon that John really started to notice a reaction. He soon discovered that the name he had originally chosen in order to appear more ordinary was, ironically, anything but.
An avid traveler, John concedes that the name is “good for parties, but bad for border crossings.” Apparently, Homeland Security doesn’t believe it’s his real name. Upon re-entering the United States, customs officials routinely pull him aside to verify his identity.
One can hardly blame him for leaving the country so often. “When I’m in Korea,” John relays, “I know what it’s like to just have a name.” In fact, during a recent trip the tables were turned when a fellow American traveler introduced himself as Will Smith and no one believed him, except for John.
Had John been born during the internet age, perhaps he would have chosen differently given the proliferation of online name generators. But when presented with such options, John steadfastly insists that he wouldn’t want to be known as anything else. He briefly contemplated changing his last name to “Doh,” but thought, “Nah, I like John Doe. It’s been my name for 31 years now. It’s totally me. I’m the real John Doe.”
To find out more about the life of John Doe, visit his blog at johnhdoe.com
