Before K-Anna Stephens posted her daughter’s name to the Facebook group “that name is a tragedeigh,” she knew that the response wasn’t going to be kind. Internet strangers aren’t usually known for being nice, and the more than 154,000 group members were gathered specifically to mock and judge “tragic names.”

Stephens herself knows how hard it is to have a distinctive name. Named after a grandmother and distant relative (Kay + Anna), she’s heard all kinds of pronunciations and remarks, and dealt with the never-ending headache of trying to submit the dash in “K-Anna” on government websites and filing systems. Still, she says, at almost 30 years old, she’s become desensitized to it.

Still, even K-Anna Stephens, with her three decades of unique name experience, didn’t know just how mean the

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