AAAHHHH, thank you so much! I really enjoyed watching your playthrough! Concerning the rejected names, I think the game kept rejecting the shorter names because the conditional statement was only looking at the letters of your names in order, so it rejected the shorter versions of your name while accepting the longer ones, if that makes sense.
I liked listening to your different theories about what was really going on. I might explain my own interpretation of it in a devlog later, but it might be more fun to let everyone have their own interpretations of it. For me, the reason why there is no explanation in-game is because I've discovered that some of the eeriest experiences I've had in gaming have been from games that never explained the mystery in full. The game just drops you in the middle and expects you to find your way on your own. That's what I wanted to do with this game. Which version of the apocalypse is the true one? How much does everyone remember from their past lives? Where is Echo? That's never explained, so you have to find your own way through.
Again, thanks so much!