For DUers Throughout the English-Speaking World: Question About a Name

[Sporadicus]

I've recently made the acquaintance of someone with an 'interesting' name - at least in the UK: John Thomas. He's not British, but he's from a country with a high percentage of English-speaking people. From what I can tell, in the UK 'John Thomas' is also a euphemism for a component of the male anatomy; a rough analogy would be an American named 'Dick Peters.' The only reason I know about 'John Thomas' is a Monty Python sketch in 'The Meaning of Life.'

Meeting this fellow got me to wondering: how widespread is this particular euphemism? Is it common throughout the British Commonwealth of Nations? The guy I met is from a nation with many Anglophiles, so it's likely his parents had at least heard this euphemism, and that makes me wonder...what were they thinking?

[trotsky]

1. It's not used much here in the US, but I'm familiar with the term.

I would have to stifle a giggle if introduced to a man really named John Thomas. I think I learned about it from MP as well.

[Sporadicus]

2. Well, *I* Had to Stifle!

I kept waiting for clues that he was goofing on me, but it's right there on his business card.

[meegbear]

3. From the web ...

And there is John Thomas as a slang term for the penis; this is known in print since the 1870s, but since it was rude it had probably been in circulation for a time before anyone wrote it down (there’s a story that there was a real John Thomas about 1400 who was extremely well-endowed, but it seems to be just a legend; it’s more probable that it derives from the use of the same phrase as a generalised term for a servant). Associated words are the comparatively recent johnny as one of a myriad of slang terms for a condom, and john for a prostitute’s client.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-joh1.htm

John Thomas n. "John Thomas" is slang in the UK for one's penis. The term derives from the name the leading man in D.H. Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover gave to his own appendage. The book was made famous by the obscenity trial it landed Penguin Books in during the 1950s.

http://english2american.com/dictionary/cat_thebody.html