Bung ''Atrocity'', ''No-one'', ''Jamrag'' or ''Volume'' after it and you had something altogether different - a punk rocker's moniker fit for someone with a healthy disregard for all things ordinary.
There was a swag of these Johns on the vibrant Auckland punk scene of the late '70s, each of them crossing paths regularly at venues like Zwines Nightclub.
A fellowship of oddballs, strengthened by a shared hunger for excitement and fresh sounds from London and New York, they bashed away at covers and knocked originals into shape, learning on the job in true punk fashion.
Bryan Staff, a DJ for Auckland station 1ZM, made it his mission to compile an album featuring some of the stalwarts of the scene.
AK79, released in 1980 on Staff's Ripper Records, captured Auckland punk culture in its dying glory and pointed to where left-of-centre music was going next.
Six bands featured - The Scavengers, The Terrorways, Proud Scum, The Primmers, The Swingers and Toy Love, the band that had shaded them all as Dunedin-based The Enemy but which had by now slickened and softened slightly in its new guise.
The Swingers, too, had taken a more pop-oriented form than the brasher beast that begat the band, scene forerunners The Suburban Reptiles.
Swingers tracks A Certain Sound and Baby, though melodic, quirky and highly original, are a mile away from the four-on-the-floor pogo-rock of The Terrorways' Never Been To Borstal or Proud Scum's Suicide.
For all punk's reputation for venom and rebellion, this collection feels more like a celebration than a call to arms.
Even in The Scavengers' Mysterex, a poison-pen letter to a former bandmate, we have a power-pop song that is among New Zealand's catchiest and finest.
What these dozen tracks do share, however, is the mischievous spirit of the times ... and a few Johns.
