Where do these values come from? The documentation for android:fontFamily does not list this information in any place

These are indeed not listed in the documentation. But they are mentioned here under the section 'Font families'. The document lists every new public API for Android Jelly Bean 4.1.

In the styles.xml file in the application I'm working on somebody listed this as the font family, and I'm pretty sure it's wrong:

Yes, that's wrong. You don't reference the font file, you have to use the font name mentioned in the linked document above. In this case it should have been this:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif</item>

Like the linked answer already stated, 12 variants are possible:

Added in Android Jelly Bean (4.1) - API 16 :

Regular (default):

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif</item><item name="android:textStyle">normal</item> 

Italic:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif</item><item name="android:textStyle">italic</item>

Bold:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif</item><item name="android:textStyle">bold</item>

Bold-italic:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif</item><item name="android:textStyle">bold|italic</item>

Light:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-light</item><item name="android:textStyle">normal</item>

Light-italic:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-light</item><item name="android:textStyle">italic</item>

Thin :

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-thin</item><item name="android:textStyle">normal</item>

Thin-italic :

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-thin</item><item name="android:textStyle">italic</item>

Condensed regular:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-condensed</item><item name="android:textStyle">normal</item>

Condensed italic:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-condensed</item><item name="android:textStyle">italic</item>

Condensed bold:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-condensed</item><item name="android:textStyle">bold</item>

Condensed bold-italic:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-condensed</item><item name="android:textStyle">bold|italic</item>

Added in Android Lollipop (v5.0) - API 21 :

Medium:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-medium</item><item name="android:textStyle">normal</item>

Medium-italic:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-medium</item><item name="android:textStyle">italic</item>

Black:

<item name="android:fontFamily">sans-serif-black</item><item name="android:textStyle">italic</item>

For quick reference, this is how they all look like:

Available fonts (as of Oreo)

The Material Design Typography page has demos for some of these fonts and suggestions on choosing fonts and styles.

For code sleuths: fonts.xml is the definitive and ever-expanding list of Android fonts.

Using these fonts

Set the android:fontFamily and android:textStyle attributes, e.g.

<!-- Roboto Bold --><TextView    android:fontFamily="sans-serif"    android:textStyle="bold" />

to the desired values from this table:

Font                     | android:fontFamily          | android:textStyle-------------------------|-----------------------------|-------------------Roboto Thin              | sans-serif-thin             |Roboto Light             | sans-serif-light            |Roboto Regular           | sans-serif                  |Roboto Bold              | sans-serif                  | boldRoboto Medium            | sans-serif-medium           |Roboto Black             | sans-serif-black            |Roboto Condensed Light   | sans-serif-condensed-light  |Roboto Condensed Regular | sans-serif-condensed        |Roboto Condensed Medium  | sans-serif-condensed-medium |Roboto Condensed Bold    | sans-serif-condensed        | boldNoto Serif               | serif                       |Noto Serif Bold          | serif                       | boldDroid Sans Mono          | monospace                   |Cutive Mono              | serif-monospace             |Coming Soon              | casual                      |Dancing Script           | cursive                     |Dancing Script Bold      | cursive                     | boldCarrois Gothic SC        | sans-serif-smallcaps        |

(Noto Sans is a fallback font; you can't specify it directly)

Note: this table is derived from fonts.xml. Each font's family name and style is listed in fonts.xml, e.g.

<family name="serif-monospace">    <font weight="400" style="normal">CutiveMono.ttf</font></family>

serif-monospace is thus the font family, and normal is the style.

Compatibility

Based on the log of fonts.xml and the former system_fonts.xml, you can see when each font was added:

• Ice Cream Sandwich: Roboto regular, bold, italic, and bold italic
• Jelly Bean: Roboto light, light italic, condensed, condensed bold, condensed italic, and condensed bold italic
• Jelly Bean MR1: Roboto thin and thin italic
• Lollipop:
  • Roboto medium, medium italic, black, and black italic
  • Noto Serif regular, bold, italic, bold italic
  • Cutive Mono
  • Coming Soon
  • Dancing Script
  • Carrois Gothic SC
  • Noto Sans
• Oreo MR1: Roboto condensed medium

As far as I'm aware, you can't declare custom fonts in xml or themes. I usually just make custom classes extending textview that set their own font on instantiation and use those in my layout xml files.

ie:

public class Museo500TextView extends TextView {    public Museo500TextView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {        super(context, attrs);              this.setTypeface(Typeface.createFromAsset(context.getAssets(), "path/to/font.ttf"));    }}

and

<my.package.views.Museo900TextView        android:id="@+id/dialog_error_text_header"        android:layout_width="190dp"        android:layout_height="wrap_content"        android:gravity="center_horizontal"        android:textSize="12sp" />