Aunty Donna's name origin

Aunty Donna have made many claims as to the true origin of their name. This usually happens when they are being interviewed and are bored of giving the same answer.

## List of potential origins

* Replying to u/Sir\_Leminid on Reddit in September 2014, Mark claimed that he knew the redditor's mum's friend who was nicknamed 'Aunty Donna.' He wrote: "Yeah we know her. She's a babe. She let us use her name on the condition we breed more nieces and nephews for her to add to the confusion. So far Bro has fathered 6 and Zach got gonorrhoea. She's a complicated woman at the best of times but a stone cold babe and we love her for it. She isn't responding to our texts anymore but she's probably busy with work. Do you have her email address?"
* On November 18, 2014, a Facebook post from the boys read; "Broden found this old notebook in the boot of his car. Before we were Aunty Donna, we tried out a bunch of other names." The picture in the post was of a notebook that read;

>
> Possible Group Names
>
>
>
> * Aunty Donna's Men
> * Six Men / 6 Men
> * The Bovril Boys
> * Joe Kosky & others
> * Adrian Dean & the baked bean
> * Sam Lingham & his box of Ingham
>

- Interviewed by The Brag in May 2015, Broden said "We needed a name for our Melbourne Comedy Festival application; we had like eight minutes to decide on a name before the application deadline. One of us went, “Just fucking Aunty Donna or something."”

- In an interview for The Good Guide in February 2016, Zach said the name was an amalgamation of the three names they were considering for the group; 'ANTBZM', 'The Tea Party' and 'Donna'. This was reiterated in a Blitz Radio interview in April of the same year, with Mark also mentioning 'The Hoodoo Gurus.'

- For the Sydney Morning Herald in June 2016, the boys said that Mark had an aunt with the nickname Doner because she loved doner kebabs and owned her own kebab store. They then changed this to Donna because it had the letters 'DNA' in it and when they get together, "it's a molecular breakdown."

- In an interview with Art Smitten in September 2017, Broden parroted his earlier claim in May 2015 that they had a last-minute brainstorm for a name to register for the MICF, but also said that there was a guy at Carlton library called Uncle Don there and they just chose the opposite of his name.

- In Podcast Ep 101 - The Bob Saget Show in June 2018, Mark explained that the group was originally named 'Nurse Salty' for four years because they were huge Doctor Pepper fans. However, a better sketch group came up that also went by this name. The next year, they tried to do a festival but there were nine other groups called 'Nurse Salty.' They thus changed their name to another play on words of Doctor Pepper, Aunty Donna. It cuts right through. There are now 43 Nurse Saltys, 7 Uncle Herbies and 23 Aunty Donnas, though the boys are the most popular.

- In an online lecture type thing by Broden through Collarts in July 2020, he said that Zach's original name was Auntydo Nna Ruane, but they wanted the group to be called Aunty Donna so he changed his name to Zach. The group was almost called Zach, but they liked the name Aunty Donna more.

- In an interview on the ABC show *Stop Everything!*, Mark said that his dad Charlie Bonanno was a crabber in Geelong who ate the crabs and occasionally kept them as pets. His favourite crab he ever caught was so big (30cm width, 5-6cm height with snippers the size of golf balls and legs the length of beans) that it needed a custom tank. This crab was named Aunty Donna, which the group named themselves after. When the crab died, Charlie became mute from grief and has been ever since. The crab was cut into pieces and placed in several different shoe boxes before being buried, as it would not fit in a single box.

- Upon the release of the thirtieth anniversary edition of the book *Always Room for Christmas Pud*, the group claimed in the podcast that Aunty Donna was the name of a popular children's author in the early 90s who wrote the original book. Mark and Zach discovered her in primary school. Unbeknownst to both Broden and Mark, Zach almost entirely copied the sketch *Always Room for Christmas Pud* from the original book. (*Broden's Books*)

- In a Wonderland Magazine interview, Zach stated that "we’re called Aunty Donna because we’re all fans of Aunty Mac’s fried chicken which is an obscure Australian brand you could get in some random food courts and the lady, Donna, who worked at the Wendouree food court… I’m sorry that’s not very funny… Usually when people ask us why we’re called Aunty Donna we riff some bullshit but I’m not feeling very funny right now. Can you cut this question?"

## Sources

1. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/auntydonna/comments/2gtq33/from\_where\_did\_the\_name\_come/
2. ↑ https://www.facebook.com/309604349096853/photos/a.596900713700547/809682575755692/
3. ↑ https://thebrag.com/five-minutes-broden-kelly-aunty-donna/
4. ↑ https://thegoodguide.com.au/brisbane/blog/item/meet-aunty-donna
5. ↑ https://youtu.be/Z6IVvPiXq-I
6. ↑ https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/comedy-group-aunty-donna-is-not-your-fathers-sister-or-even-your-uncles-wife-20160622-gpp9ji.html
7. ↑ https://open.spotify.com/episode/6qnnXLEmo8DU5hfFA3YBVI?si=FL6L10vCQLqp-d9GeZKsXQ
8. ↑ https://fb.watch/c3lV1RdWZf/
9. ↑ https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/stop-everything/aunty-donna-pete-evans/12900010
10. ↑ https://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2023/09/25/aunty-donna-uk/