On "Modify Profile Fields", cannot leave a "required field" blank even if "modify field" is not checked for that field

My profiles have "first name" and "last name" fields that are required to be filled on login. If I create a rule to "modify profile fields" and check a different profile field to be filled, Rules throws an error if my "first name" or "last name" fields are empty. Obviously, I don't want to set everyone's names to the same! I can work around this if I make the fields not required, create my rule, and then make them required again but this is tedious.