I accidentally found out my friend's deadname
Hello, I am in desperate need of help with this situation. I wish it were that I accidentally saw it on a piece of mail, but this is different.
I and my friend are college students and we met while working at the same dining hall on campus. Recently, we both had to transfer to a different dining hall and resign-up our accounts. He's trans (I am cis) and has always been very secretive about his deadname (which is very understandable and it's something I've always respected).
Well, just a few minutes ago, I was looking through the employee list to find another employee that works at the dining hall and since their names are close by, I noticed that my friend's first name is there, but there is also a name in parentheses right beside it, then his last name. This name in the parentheses is not his middle name nor is it a name I've ever seen in relation to him, which makes me think it's his deadname.
That is where the dilemma comes. This is for everyone to see at our dining hall, not just an accidental viewing by me only. Had that been the case, I wouldn't have even let him know I saw, but since it's for everyone to see, I'm wondering if I should tell him. I looked all over the app to see if there's a way for employees to manually edit our names, but only managers are able to, meaning he'd have to go to someone higher up to make the change.
I'm super stressed out and genuinely don't know what to do. I feel like I should tell him since everyone can see it, but I know he'd be crushed to know that I know since he's been very focused on me not knowing his deadname (again, rightfully so). I'd never refer to him as this name and I know he knows that, but still this is a huge breach of privacy that I've made and I don't know if I should tell him or just let it go.
Thank you so so much for any advice. I appreciate it!!
UPDATE:
Hi all. I wanted to thank everyone who commented. All of your advice was truly helpful and I appreciate you all for taking the time to respond to my post and help me out.
I messaged my friend after confirming he wasn't at work and it went about as well as it could have. Obviously, he agrees that it's fucked that they did this, especially since he's had his name legally changed since before he even started working at our original dining hall (I started working there maybe a year after that), so we have no idea who did this or how they even got ahold of that name. We figured out who he could email about fixing it, so that will hopefully be taken care of shortly. I've assured him that this will stay between us and that no one will know that I know his deadname and I promised to support him in whatever way he needs. He did say this means I can now meet his parents so there's that I suppose lol.
One last time, thank you all for the help! You're incredible!