<P> The names "John Doe" and "Richard Roe," along with "John Roe" or "Doo" were regularly invoked in English legal instruments to satisfy technical requirements governing standing and jurisdiction, beginning perhaps as early as the reign of England's King Edward III (1327--1377). </P> <P> Other fictitious names for a person involved in litigation under English law were John - Noakes, or John Noakes / Nokes and John - a-Stiles / John Stiles . </P> <P> The Oxford English Dictionary states that John Doe is "the name given to the fictitious lessee of the plaintiff, in the (now obsolete in the UK) mixed action of ejectment, the fictitious defendant being called Richard Roe". </P> <P> This usage is mocked in the 1834 English song "John Doe and Richard Roe": </P>

Where did the phrase john doe come from