where did the name jane doe and john doe come from
John Doe In other English-speaking countries, unique placeholder names, numbers and/or codenames have become more often used in the context of police investigations. This has included the United Kingdom, where usage of "John Doe" originated during the Middle Ages. However, the legal term John Doe injunction (or John Doe Order),[3] has survived in English law and other legal systems influenced by it. Other names used informally such as "Joe Bloggs" or "John Smith" have sometimes been informally used as placeholders for an everyman in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, such names are seldom used in legal or police circles in the same sense as John Doe.