“What Were The Parents Thinking?” 30 People Share The Most Terrible Names They’ve Encountered (New Pics)

To learn more about this hilarious, and slightly tragic, Facebook group, we reached out to administrator Zane Mauldon-Green. He actually was kind enough to speak with Bored Panda the last time we covered the group as well, about 8 months ago. He explained then that he is not the founder of That Name is a Tragedeigh 2.0, but he joined shortly after it was created. “I’ve since taken over running the group, as the original creator has two young kids and is very busy with all the tasks that come with being a mum,” Zane explained.

The group has been around since 2020 and was formed to be a place to laugh at insanely unique spellings of names, without tolerating the shaming of traditional or cultural names from around the world. "Our members work really well together to create a healthy respect for all the cultures,” Zane previously told Bored Panda. "The members are so active that we are actually constantly being summoned to review posts and keyword alerts. We have even lovingly referred to the group as essentially a full-time job at times," he noted. "I myself take full advantage of that level of engagement by the occasional fictitious name post for everyone’s amusement."

Since it has been a while since Bored Panda checked in with That Name is a Tragedeigh 2.0, we asked Zane if he could fill us in on what the group has been up to. “It’s hard to believe it’s been 8 months, so much has happened,” he shared. “We’ve hit a milestone which was great to see, having now surpassed 50k members!”

“We also had to take an extensive break and suspend the group for a while to avoid Facebook deleting it,” Zane noted. “Unfortunately, their decisions aren’t always reviewed by an actual person, which can make having those decisions appealed quite difficult,” he explained.

Zane also revealed that there have been quite a few new name trends that have emerged this year. “The most common one tends to be names of characters from new TV shows or movies, which is very unfortunate for those children. Namely, the most recent one being Wednesdaigh, which has become quite popular due to the recent show.”

We were also curious if Zane believes people have gotten worse at naming our children over the years, or if we’ve just become more aware of these tragic names since we now have the ability to roast one another via the internet. “I think we have definitely gotten worse,” he shared. “Obviously, there have always been tragic names. However, as more and more children are born, many parents become desperate to give their children something to set them apart from others.”

“This has been happening with increasing regularity,” Zane noted. “For example, one I saw just this week was Nae-then as a freak version of Nathan. My cousin's name is Dylan (he’s 6), and there are 3 other kids in his year each with a different spelling. The most tragic one would be Dihlen.”

“As it happens, the ‘old fashioned’ names such as Margaret I believe will reappear in the future, as it becomes harder and harder to mangle standard names into tragic spellings,” Zane added. 

Earlier this year, we asked him what some of the most appalling names he had ever seen were, and he shared, "I think any names that are deliberately spelled incorrectly for the purpose of being unique are some of the worst names. For example, Emma-leigh instead of Emily.”

“However, two of the worst I have seen are Knoxxli Blayze and Addilyn,” Zane noted. “Mainly just because they aren’t names, just weird mashups of other words or something worse."