Marilyn and I have pretty well given up our membership of Deloraine Probus Club but haven't officially resigned and there's still one job I have to do from time to tine. Whenever a new member joins, it's my job to order his/her badge from the badge maker in Launceston. The rationale is that I live closer to Launceston than anyone else and that's fine.
I had to order one the other day, for a new member whose name is John Smith. The badge maker thought this was unusual enough to comment. I think John Smith is the sort of name a screenwriter might choose for a well-meaning drifter who gets involved in a battle between sheep farmers and cattle ranchers in the old west, but if my surname were Smith, I might choose a more sparky name than John.
I wondered whether John Smith might be the most common male name in Australia, but it's not. Neither John nor Smith is the most common name. In the USA, though, both John and Smith top the polls. Clearly, my understanding of the commonality of names is coloured by the ubiquity of American culture.
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