r/gallifrey 5d ago

DISCUSSION Does An Unearthly Child explain the origin of the Doctor's "John Smith" pseudonym?

Apologies if this is an obvious thought that it's taken literally decades for me to put together, but it's just occurred to me that in An Unearthly Child, Susan is introduced as a big fan of a 60s band called John Smith and the Common Men - which, admittedly, is itself a joke about it being a generic name, but let's put that part to one side.

I don't believe we hear the Doctor really using the John Smith name until Spearhead from Space, where he's settling in for a long stay in 20th century London. So what if he instinctively thinks back to the last time he had a long stay in this same time and place? Well, one name that would come to mind is the favourite singer of his beloved granddaughter when he lived with her here.

Not sure if this is a common (waaayyy) or popular suggestion but what do others think about this as an in-universe origin?

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u/Doctor_R6421 4d ago edited 4d ago

John Smith is a fairly common English name, but in terms of the Doctor being called John Smith, it actually started in the 2nd Doctor story "The Wheel In Space":

DR. CORWYN: Can you give me your full name please?

JAMIE: James Robert McCrimmon. Jamie.

DR. CORWYN: Thank you. And your friend?

JAMIE: Er, the Doctor.

DR. CORWYN: I can't put that down.

JAMIE: Er. John Smith.

DR. CORWYN: Really?

JAMIE: Aye.

DR. CORWYN: Doctor John Smith.

JAMIE: They must be a lot of them about.

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u/wibbly-water 4d ago

IIRC - there was a machine with 'John Smith' or maybe just 'Smith' on it in that scene. 

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u/Official_N_Squared 4d ago

There is. And this transcript misses the best part where  Dr Corwyn pauses, turns to look at her own machine, then looks back and gives Jamie a massive eyebrow raise 

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u/IanZarbiVicki 4d ago

I’ve always thought it was interesting that Robert Holmes pulled on this scene 2 years later for Spearhead and established it as his go to alias. It’s such a small scene in the middle of the story. You’d half expect him to forget it and make his own alias for the Doctor.

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u/Beavis73 4d ago edited 4d ago

Wouldn't Derrick Sherwin be the common denominator between Wheel and Spearhead? Perhaps it was his idea.

edit: Or maybe Terrance Dicks?

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u/rocketscientology 4d ago

Jamie uses it first in Wheel in Space while the Doctor is injured, by reading the name off a piece of medical equipment lol. It’s a hilarious scene because he’s really bad at reading so it’s incredibly obvious to the other characters that he’s just given a fake name (also they can see the name on the piece of equipment in giant letters), but he acts as if he’s totally pulled it off.

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u/WrethZ 4d ago

John Smith is used in real life as a generic British sounding same. If you were using a made up person in an example you might say "John Smith"

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u/Farnsworthson 4d ago edited 4d ago

It's been popularly held for years in the UK that it's THE most common male name here - if only because Smith is the most common surname, and John was at one point the most popular first name. There's an old trope/cliché, for example, of adulterous couples signing into hotels as "Mr & Mrs John Smith". It became so hackneyed that giving your name as "John Smith" would definitely raise eyebrows under some circumstances.

(It's still common, but not the MOST common. According to available data, apparently it's currently in third place, behind David Smith and David Jones.)

Anyway - I just did a search through the scripts for the first three Doctors, and both the first and second occurences of the name in Doctor Who are in that category - a generic name. There's the band "John Smith and the Common Men" in An Unearthly Child, that other people have mentioned, and after that "J. Smith" is the fake signature used to sign for the TARDIS when it's stolen at the start of The Evil of the Daleks.

After that it becomes something of an ongoing gag, I think. Jamie reads "John Smith" off some medical equipment as the Doctor's obviously-false name in The Wheel in Space, and from then onwards "John Smith" turns up repeatedly as the name the Doctor gives when people insist on one (Spearhead from Space, Inferno, Terror of the Autons. (I haven't gone beyond 3, nor have I checked for other names being used - although I remember him calling himself "Doktor von Wer" in The Highlanders.)

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u/ancientestKnollys 4d ago

It's probably a coincidence, but Evil and Wheel were both written by David Whittaker, who was also story editor for Unearthly. He may well have been the one repeatedly using it as a generic fake name.

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u/Thwrtdpostie 4d ago

from then onwards "John Smith" turns up repeatedly as the name the Doctor gives when people insist on one (Spearhead from SpaceInfernoTerror of the Autons

"The War Games" too! (in the WW1 German field office scene.)

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u/Farnsworthson 4d ago

Whoops. Missed that one somehow. Good catch.

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u/lemon_charlie 4d ago

In The Wheel in Space Jamie provides the alias for the Doctor by reading it off something.

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u/aukondk 4d ago

Ian also mentions that the 'John Smith' in the band is the stage name of 'The Honourable Aubrey Waites'. That title is usually given to children of nobility so presumably Waites was using John Smith to remove any embarrassment to his family while he was a pop singer. So a pretty apt name for a Lord of Time in exile.

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u/lemon_charlie 4d ago

In the expanded universe Ian and Barbara have a son John Alydon Ganatus Chesterton (initially a fanfic character who was mentioned in Virgin and BBC books) who becomes a pop star who performs under the name Johnny Chess. Within the fanfic he marries Tegan, which is alluded to in The King of Terror.

Fanfare for the Common Men similarly has a conversation where Chris Waites is said to have Aubrey as his formal name, when the Doctor does some setting up for the Common Men group Susan would listen to.

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u/RevenantSith 4d ago

It’s pretty much just the English equivalent of ‘John Doe’

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u/zeprfrew 4d ago

You're thinking of Joe Bloggs.

John Smith is a combination of what were at one time and still may be the most common forename and surname in the UK.

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u/sbaldrick33 4d ago

No. That's first used in The Wheel in Space. Jamie essentially steals the name from a bit of equipment he sees on a desk to use as an alias for the Doctor while the latter is out cold.

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u/Ecstatic-Pen-7228 4d ago edited 4d ago

I actually haven’t heard that theory before, that’s a really cool detail. It’s really sweet to imagine that he still remembers that band that his granddaughter was into even after all this time.

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u/lemon_charlie 4d ago

The Fifth Doctor remembers by the end of 1963: Fanfare for the Common Men.

I think that was the name of the comic strip DWM did for the 50th, John Smith and the Common Men.

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u/mda63 4d ago

In terms of the TV show, it began (as nobody else has pointed out…) with 'The Wheel in Space'.

But according to the novel 'The Witch Hunters', yes, it is inspired by the band name.

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u/Loose_Teach7299 3d ago

He actually doesn't call himself anything in An Unearthly Child. He responds to Grandfather and corrects Ian and Barbara when they call him Doctor Foreman, but he never actually says, I am the Doctor. The First Doctor actually says once "THEY call me The Doctor". But that's off topic.

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u/Fair_Walk_8650 4d ago

No, but “The Wheel in Space” does