Ashley Kozich, 30, who works for a community foundation and lives in Fort Lauderdale, has a group chat with her eight best friends whom she met as a student at the University of Mississippi. Over the past year, many of them have had babies, so they now mark the most recently born children as a group photo.
But the group calls it here to stay: “The Sorry People.” “In college we were a really rowdy group of girls, and we caused chaos and trouble everywhere,” Ms. Kozich said. “In the morning we had to go on apology tours and say sorry for whatever we did.”
The name, she said, has taken on a life of its own. “It’s been our name for over a decade and people ask us, ‘How are the Sorry People doing?’” she said. “I don’t think we can be called anything else.”
Many names that started in group chats are now used in other settings.
Tim Monaghan, 39, a publicist, started a group chat with his best friends during the pandemic called “Meet Me at Fanelli’s,” referring to a well-known bar in SoHo. “We named it during the pandemic,” said Mr. Monaghan, who lives in Brooklyn. “Fanelli’s is where we would always go, and we dreamed that we could all gather there again.”
When his friends Monica Khemsurov and Jill Singer (both on the wire) published a book titled “How to Live With Objects” in November 2022, the authors included the group name in the dedication. “Thanks to our Fanelli’s chat, which provided a steady stream of memes, gossip and other distractions, plus what feels like an eternity of encouragement,” they wrote.
Choosing a meaningful group chat name can be an easy way to make participants happy. “I smile every time I see our name, which is a lot because this group chat goes on all day,” Ms. Kozich said.
