Non-fatally speaking, you’re right. In the 1990s I generally heard it called “the next decade.” Now it is called “this decade” and I assume in 3+ years it will be called “the previous decade”.
It will start getting awkward after that. In the 2080s will it be called “first decade of the century” or what? (Especially since the “first decade” of this century is from 2001 to 2010. Ordinal vs. cardinal numbers again.)
We’re not calling it anything because the only name that would really make sense would be “The Terror Years,” and nobody really likes that.
I call it “The Zeroes”.
Because, as robardin said upthread, calling it something like “The Peak Years” or “The Age of Decline” or “The Annoying Age” would be depressing.
Besides, not all of us are terrified.
And wasn’t the “Great Terror” that period after the French Revolution when the ruling clique cynically manipulated the terror levels of the populace to do in all their opponents?
[sub]If you are terrified, the terrorists are winning…[/sub]
I’ve been using “aught.” Sounds great, and it’s going to sound even better when I’m a stooped, grey-haired geezer.
“Why I remember back in ought-four, I think it was, and we had the greatest blizzard ever…”
I think it’s fascinating that in our world of memes for anything that’s been around for five minutes, we have no name for this decade. Absolutely fascinating. I could write a sociological thesis on it. If I was, you know, a sociologist. And I wrote theses.
I like The Decade That Shall Not Be Named, personally. Or TDTSNBN for short (I took the W out because I don’t like W’s in acronyms).
Why would there be a “w” in that acronym? I agree with its exclusion, in any case. There is a tendency to shorten “double-you” to “dub” which is annoying.
I’ve sheepishly been calling it “the aughts” expecting derision, but so far so good. I wonder what it will be like to have nostalgia for this decade.
There was a W in slortar’s original phrase (“The Decade Which Shall Not Be Named”).
We will call it what we call the 1900s–the turn of the century.
Hey, hold up there a minute. The only people here bandying around ‘aughts’ are Yanks. ‘Aughts’ is unheard of here - we’d say ‘naught’ as an alternative for zero, and as such, ‘naughties’ is often used (also, because it sounds saucy).
I like the O’s. Aughts and naughts are too quaint. Zips wouldn’t be bad.
“Naught” doesn’t exist in American English, either 
It has over here, in the media at least. I like it.
I call it the the naughties, and will continue to use it until I hear something better.
Hmm, I haven’t thought about it. Then again, I have not yet needed to call this decade anything.
The aught naught decade.
The The naughty aughties.
Another vote for “the uh-oh’s”. It’s so fitting.
Yes it does. Your post is for naught.
Sorry naughties, naughts, aughts, and uh-oh spaghetti-O’s - but plain old “ohs” makes the most sense, since as previously pointed out, we do say oh-4, oh-5, oh-6 etc.
You can fight for your nerd-words all you want, but my money is that it will end up being the ohs. Just embrace it now.
Why do you hate this decade so much?