soandso

Soandso is a placeholder name used in English to refer to an unnamed or hypothetical person. It functions as a generic stand-in in everyday speech, explanations, and casual writing when the person's identity is irrelevant or deliberately withheld. The form is commonly written as so-and-so in formal or semi-formal contexts, with the unhyphenated variant soandso appearing in informal writing, branding, or digital names.

The standard form so-and-so derives from the colloquial expression so and so, a way of referring to “the said person” without naming them. This construction has long been part of English, with the hyphenated version serving as a conventional noun phrase. In modern usage, so-and-so can carry a light, humorous, or dismissive tone depending on context; it is generally not appropriate for formal, legal, or sensitive writings where anonymity should be handled more carefully.

In practice, so-and-so is used to avoid attributing statements to a specific individual or to illustrate examples without identity. It is sometimes contrasted with explicit placeholders such as John Doe or Jane Doe when a more formal anonymization is required. The term also appears in literature and media as a stylistic device to reference a real person without naming them, contributing to its recognizable but non-specific character in language.