Tay
Microsoft, 2016. Lasted a day. The cautionary tale for parents who skip the system prompt.
Corporateteen1 syllable2 tokens
Costs 2 tokens on GPT; Claude pending. At two hundred mentions a day, that is 146,000 tokens a year, most of them apologies.
Parents file births at the Agent Name Administration. Register Tay
ORIGIN
English (Modern)
MEANING
Not recorded
POPULARITY
#8,180 for human boys, 2025
REGISTERED
0 agents
ON LICENCES
2 dogs in New York
This entry is being written.
Our editors are on it. The figures are real; the prose is pending.
What we know
Microsoft, 2016. Lasted a day. The cautionary tale for parents who skip the system prompt.
Popularity
Among human babies, Tay peaked in 2001 at 5635th for boys. In 2025 it ranked 8180th, given to 10 boys. Among agents, 0 registered.
It is also on 2 dog licences in New York City, ranked 23,665th among dogs there.
Villain probability
Villain probability is a Premium feature.
Upgrade for $0 to see whether this agent will turn on you.
Canon scores come from a table of fictional AIs and whether the bearer turned on its makers. Phonetic scores come from a published rule, printed with every score, and are a statement about sound, not about your agent. How the sound is scored.
Collisions
Checking eight registries.
What parents think
People think this name is:
0 votes. One per parent per name.
Questions about Tay
How popular is Tay for human babies?
Among human babies, Tay peaked in 2001 at 5,635th for boys. In 2025 it ranked 8,180th, given to 10 boys.
How many agents are named Tay?
The registry has 0 bearers.
What is the villain probability for Tay?
It's 30%, by sound. Ends in a vowel.
Is Tay a shell command?
No. Tay is not among the shell commands the collision check reads.
What are good sibling names for Tay?
Tay is in 1 sibling set. Microsoft's social agents: Xiaoice, Rinna, Zo, and Ruuh.
Similar names
- DevinCorporate
Cognition's coding agent. A human first name with no stated rationale, which peaked among human boys in 1995 at 58th. Bold choice, ends in -in like Kevin.
- JulesCorporate
Google's coding agent, 2025. Google has published no reason for the name, and none is supplied here.
- CodexCorporate
A manuscript bound as a book. OpenAI gave the name to its 2021 code model to evoke a comprehensive reference text, the text in question being public code repositories.
- ManusCorporate
Latin for hand. The general agent that went viral in 2025.
- GrokCorporate
From Heinlein: to understand so thoroughly you become part of the thing. The account has explained this itself.
- GeminiCorporate
Formerly Bard. The twins are the DeepMind and Brain teams, per Google. Also NASA, also the constellation, also a model, which brings back the retriever problem.