I once met a guy called Jim Smith who didn't like his name. What's not to like about Jim Smith?

"I'm invisible," he lamented. "It's the most common name in the English-speaking world," he said. "My name makes it impossible to find me on the Internet or in databases."

I tried to find him through my computer. The US census bureau said there were 51,013 different Jim Smiths in the United States alone. Google found 796,000 references to the name "Jim Smith."

But at least Jim's name is better than his brother's name, which is John Smith. "John's name is not only common but it sounds fake," he said. His brother has the following conversation all the time:

"What’syourname?"

"John Smith."

"Yeah, right."

f told him to bring John to Asia. He could settle in any city at random, and be the only John Smith there.

This got n|m thinking. He asked me what popular fake names were used on this side of the planet. In China, watch out for the name Wu Ming Shi, I told him. It means "Mister No Name."

In the Philippines, unnamed men are always Juan dela Cruz and unnamed women are Juanita dela Cruz.

In Singapore, a convention has grown up to refer to any unnamed moron as Tan Ah Beng. Unfortunately, there are several real Tan Ah Bengs who are greeted with gales of laughter whenever they show their name cards.

In Israel, ads for credit cards usually carry the name "Israel Israeli." I give them ten out of ten for patriotism but zero for creativity.

Spain is an odd one. Spaniards use the name Senor Fulano for the first anonymous person, and then Megano, Zuta no and

Perengano in that order for his anonymous associates. Influenced by Senor Fulano, Indonesia and Malaysia use Si Polan. If your daughter gets a Malaysian boyfriend who introduces himself as Si Polan Bin Si Polan, be careful. It means "Anonymous, son of Anonymous."

In tech-obsessed India, anonymous names are not allowed in court, but there was one case in 2006 when a judge agreed to hear a case against a man referred to only by his Internet protocol number (a web link's serial number prefixed by the letters T and 'P'). Indeed, the Indians I know are so computer-obsessed that I wouldn't be surprised if they were all one day known by their IP numbers, and will greet each other with "Namaste [Greetings]. Are you IP 234567? I am IP 987654." (This would also work well in Hong Kong, where Ip is a common family name.)

In the West, people without names are generally known as John Doe and Jane Roe. One of the most famous legal cases in American history. Roe v. Wade, is actually the fictional Jane Roe. (The real woman involved insisted on being anonymous, so respectable journalists don't include her actual name, which was Norma McCorvey.)

I always felt sorry for one guy in Atlanta who was born John Doe. When he died in 2006, the newspaper obituary said: "For most of his 92 years, he had to show his marriage license or his driver's license to prove to suspicious hotel clerks and doubting hospital personnel that John Doe was his real name."

I think we should all just use digits. From now on, please refer to me as Number One.

Write to our columnist Number One via www.vttachl.com.