This is an OPEN DISCUSSION for anyone who wants to talk about the "correct" surnames of Zerkaa and TBJZL. Feel free to link videos, tweets, posts etc. that may provide any conclusive evidence.
I am honestly sick of the surname issue that's been going on for a few months now. I am tired that people keep changing their last names back to Zerker and Lerone on basis of "'cause they said so". This is the Internet; anyone could say whatever they want whether it's true or false. Heck, they might have legally changed their birth names to their aliases for all we know, but they may not be telling us that.
To those reading who may not be aware, this whole thing started back in May of this year when an unregistered user who claimed to have known the two back in their school years left a comment on this wiki claiming that their surnames were different from what we have known about them at the time. I took upon myself to look up anything that backed up these claims, and found then-publicly accessible Facebook pages belonging to a Tobi Brown and a Josh Bradley with clear photos of them wearing Sidemen merchandise uploaded to those pages. I also had "josh bradley zerkaa" come up as a Google Instant suggestion and found a GitHub page for TBJZL with a Coventry email address. This is what convinced me to do the last name edits. I also originally linked to those Facebook pages in the infoboxes, though I've since removed them.
I didn't expect at the time that this would cause a serious edit war that would go on to this day, with possible acknowledgements of the real name issue coming from Josh himself. The Josh Bradley Facebook page had all clear photos of Zerkaa wearing the merchandise removed and Josh randomly responded, "I don't want to hear your 'I'm not a groupie, tell me your real name' speech; [my] real name is Zerker." in a recent GTA V session, which Vik could tell that was a rehearsed phrase.
As far as I know though, TBJZL has not been as responsive over the issue of his last name. Last time I checked the Tobi Brown Facebook page, there were still pictures of Tobi wearing his merchandise, though I have not seen any videos of him acknowledging the issue of his surname. If he was aware, he probably decided not to make a big deal out of it like Josh is, so that way he doesn't draw unnecessary attention to himself or his name.
Personally, I'm done with this name ordeal and don't want to get any further involved. I will say this, if people are going to provide evidence suggesting one name or the other, then the evidence should not come from the words and mouths of the Sidemen themselves, whether it's through their own videos, social media accounts, or through personal appearances on other YouTubers' videos. In other words, anything that directly involves them doesn't count as evidence; you're going to have to look elsewhere on the web for proof. It should come a secondary source (in which the Sidemen are not directly involved). Wikis and Sidemen fan pages (like this wiki) do not count as secondary sources, since they can be written and edited by anyone.
I'm unsure as to what to do in regards to the pages. "Bradley" and "Brown" are undoubtedly their real names, but they chose "Zerker" and "Lerone" for their online identities. It's probably far too late, but this wiki gets a lot of traffic (3,000+ views a day). Loads of people have discovered their real names and I have a horrible feeling that we've ruined their privacies ...Â
Lads, just chill, Josh is incredibly safety/privacy concious, let's not forget that he only started showing his face in videos last year, he did not even show his face in Simon's crossbar challenge. I think he has very uncalm nerves from drinking his beloved Dr. Pepper a little too much, it decimates one's blood calcium level, and therefore creates a lot of problems, like not being able to sleep when one would like to for example, but I digress... As for the 'edit war', given that there are probably 1000 times the people who know them by their aliases to those that know them by their irl surname, maybe even more than that, there are always people who see their listed names and would 'try to help' you guys by providing in their eyes the 'better information'. There was someone just now that said Harry's car is the 458 spider... *face palms* Anyways, I think the only way people would stop trying to edit the pages is if they are listed as 'Joshua Zerker(real surname Bradley)' or something like that, but going by the last post, I'm not sure you guys are willing to that anymore. I think it would be OK if you only show their aliases on this wiki, since that's what most people know them as, and there's no real benefit to anyone for learning the names on their passports. And I know for a fact that Josh would be much happier if that happened. For a while, I kind of doubted the legitimacy of Ethan and Vik's surnames as well, but as time went on, I just realised that it does not really matter at all.
I was once very intrigued by the surname 'Zerker', and where it originated, plus josh is from southeast London, but has a very thick beard, pitch black hair, and very light brown eyes, I thought his dad might be from Greece or somewhere like that. I tried to google its origins, but I found there was only 1 person in the US with this surname or something, and I could not find where it originates. As for Tobi, it's just too funny to be true, also he's of Nigerian descent, so a French surname doesn't really fit, and 'Lerone' was actually given to him by Simon, it was in one of the early GTA videos, he was jokingly reluctant to accept it at first as well. I've personally never saw anyone with the surnames 'Zerker' and 'Lerone', but I think they are quite good online names because they are both quite unique and funny.
The online surnames seem very unlikely and we've pretty much confirmed they are not real, although you never know these days. "Tobi Lerone" is obviously meant to be "Toblerone". I have no idea as to where "Zerker" came from.Â
Yeah, I think it's probably a clan tag, like 'KSI', or something CoD related. Good name though.