Every Tom, Dick, and Sempronio

Every Tom, Dick, and Harry. Ever hear someone use that expression to indicate multiple unspecified people? In Italian, the analogous phrase is ogni Tizio, Caio, e Sempronio. If a large number of random people are being referred to, it's ogni Tizio, Caio, Sempronio, Mevio, Filano, e Calpurnio. Usually in spoken Italian only the first three names are commonly used, and oftentimes the phrase is written with the initial letters in lower-case.

Latin Legal Eagle
Just who are these unknowns? The terzetto (threesome, trio) Tizio, Caio, and Sempronio was originally used in administrative and jurisprudential texts in medieval Italy to indicate hypothetical individuals, and then later became a part of the common language. They appeared together for the first time in written works by Irnerio (in the Latin, in fact: Titius, Gaius et Sempronius), a law expert and one of the founders of the law school at the Università di Bologna in the early 12th century. The appellations themselves were derived from male names common in ancient Rome.

Tizio il Primo
Remember one thing regarding usage of the metasyntactic variable Tizio, Caio, e Sempronio. In the same way that articulating the phrase "Every Harry, Tom, and Dick" would immediately flag you as a non-native English speaker, Tizio, Caio, e Sempronio are always mentioned in that order. Also, that's the order of priority; one person is always Tizio; two persons are always Tizio e Caio; and three persons are always Tizio, Caio, e Sempronio.

Tizio and His Cousins
The name Tizio, in spoken Italian, is commonly used as a synonyn for the idiomatic expression un tale (anyone), and can assume any of four forms: tizio (singular masculine), tizia (singular feminine), tizi (plural masculine), and tizie (plural feminine). Interestingly enough, similar phrases exist in other languages and include: Fulano, Zutano y Mengano (in Spanish), Hinz und Kunz (in German), and Andersson, Pettersson och Lundström (in Swedish). It seems as if these theoretical individuals are part of one big global family!

Italian Stand-Ins
Besides Tizio, Caio, e Sempronio, there are other placeholder names in Italian. The famous "Signor Rossi" (and "Mario Rossi") are analogous to Mr. Smith and John Smith in English, the average person or everyman. Then there's Pinco Pallino, Tal dei Tali, and Signor Nessuno, all Italian stand-ins for "somebody, someone, anybody" depending on the context—usually colloquial and often with ironic undertones. Finally, there's un tipo or uno (a guy) and quel tipo or just quello (that guy) and his female counterpart, tipa and una.