which came first
did the name "john doe" become the name used for a anonymous guy because of this movie, or did they use it because it already did?
just wondering,thanks
From Wikipedia:
The "John Doe" custom dates back to the reign of England's King Edward III, during the legal debate over something called the Acts of Ejectment. This debate involved a hypothetical landowner, referred to as "John Doe", who leased land to another man, the equally fictitious "Richard Roe", who then took the land as his own and "ejected", or evicted, poor "John Doe".