Why does LL choose to be so restrictive regarding last name choices?

[Jennifer Boyle]

I have been wondering about this since last names again became available. LL makes a small number of names available for a limited time, periodically replacing them, never to make them available again.

It's reasonable to assume that more choices would make paying to get a new last name more attractive to more people, making SL a little more attractive to users and giving LL a little more income.

Why not make the whole pool of last names, including all that have ever been used and all that are on the list to be used in the future, available continuously, with only the limitation that first-name-last-name combinations that had already been assigned would not be available? This would be particularly attractive to people who want to share the same last name because of their relationships.

It seems to me that such an expansion of choices for last names would have no downside. What am I overlooking?

[Janet Voxel]

The way I understand it, they rotate them out every so often just to keep them fresh. That's the way they did it before as well. I'm pretty sure it has some coded explanation as to why they swap them out since your name has a UUID. 

I personally like that they rotate them out, it adds to the uniqueness of the last name thing and they already have a broad representation. There is a such thing as too much choice. I'm also guessing, not a lot of people actually changed their names after the initial wave for them to do another rotation. Some people are perfectly fine having the name Bootyjuice69!

[Rowan Amore]

3 minutes ago, Janet Voxel said:

The way I understand it, they rotate them out every so often just to keep them fresh. That's the way they did it before as well. I'm pretty sure it has some coded explanation as to why they swap them out since your name has a UUID. 

I personally like that they rotate them out, it adds to the uniqueness of the last name thing and they already have a broad representation. There is a such thing as too much choice. I'm also guessing, not a lot of people actually changed their names after the initial wave for them to do another rotation. Some people are perfectly fine having the name Bootyjuice69!

Too much choice is right.  They don't really want people changing all the time which is probably what would end up happening every time someone partnered then unpartnered.  Less name for people to agree on to share?  Plus, the price may stop some people from changing on a whim.  

[Mollymews]

54 minutes ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

What am I overlooking?

an effect of retiring last names is that it conceptually promotes avatar generations. Quite a lot of residents have always liked this idea. Some fewer get quite vocal about preserving this concept

[Garnet Psaltery]

41 minutes ago, Mollymews said:

an effect of retiring last names is that it conceptually promotes avatar generations. Quite a lot of residents have always liked this idea. Some fewer get quite vocal about preserving this concept

It is quite nice to have an irreplaceable 'family'.  Sadly, as time goes on they tend to decline in numbers.  A bit like life, really.  

[bigmoe Whitfield]

7 minutes ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

It is quite nice to have an irreplaceable 'family'.  Sadly, as time goes on they tend to decline in numbers.  A bit like life, really.  

I've seen 2 whitfields in my 13 and half years

[Mollymews]

1 minute ago, Garnet Psaltery said:

It is quite nice to have an irreplaceable 'family'.  Sadly, as time goes on they tend to decline in numbers.  A bit like life, really.  

this is true too about the sense of family that last names can engender in quite a lot of residents

am not sure tho that the retiring of last names is like life meaning real life. In real life people have children and their names often get passed down

 

[Garnet Psaltery]

Just now, Mollymews said:

this is true too about the sense of family that last names can engender in quite a lot of residents

am not sure tho that the retiring of last names is like life meaning real life. In real life people have children and their names often get passed down

 

Well, this is why I said 'a bit like life'.  I do know the difference.  

[Rowan Amore]

They finally had one I liked!

*points to her shiny new name.

[Rolig Loon]

14 minutes ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I've seen 2 whitfields in my 13 and half years

A good friend, Georgette Whitfield, came to SL in March 2007, just a few days before I did.  She left in early 2009.  You and she are the only Whitfields I have bumped into in all these years.  There are still a few Loons hanging around -- I see them pop up occasionally in one of the forums -- but we're a vanishing family too. 

[Jules Catlyn]

1 hour ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I've seen 2 whitfields in my 13 and half years

I havent met another Catlyn in the wild yet

[Kimmi Zehetbauer]

And only ran into one other Zehetbauer in my travels!

[Yuumo Ichibara]

12 hours ago, Rowan Amore said:

Too much choice is right.  They don't really want people changing all the time which is probably what would end up happening every time someone partnered then unpartnered.  Less name for people to agree on to share?  Plus, the price may stop some people from changing on a whim.  

Oh, I just noticed you changed your surname! Love it! Amore is really tempting me to spend that $40 on an alt.

[GoSpeed Racer]

I ran into another Racer 2 weeks ago and he ignored me!  I had never met another Racer before that and probably never will.

[Karen Kondrad]

16 hours ago, bigmoe Whitfield said:

I've seen 2 whitfields in my 13 and half years

I've only see 1 Kondrad in my 14 plus years , in the mirror ....lol

 

[Karl Herber]

18 hours ago, Jennifer Boyle said:

I have been wondering about this since last names again became available. LL makes a small number of names available for a limited time, periodically replacing them, never to make them available again.

It's reasonable to assume that more choices would make paying to get a new last name more attractive to more people, making SL a little more attractive to users and giving LL a little more income.

Why not make the whole pool of last names, including all that have ever been used and all that are on the list to be used in the future, available continuously, with only the limitation that first-name-last-name combinations that had already been assigned would not be available? This would be particularly attractive to people who want to share the same last name because of their relationships.

It seems to me that such an expansion of choices for last names would have no downside. What am I overlooking?

Economics.

With the cost of a name change as high as it is, not many people will do it, so the number of users for each last name will be low. If they had a wider range of names which remain available permanently, they'd be popular for a short while then slow down/stop altogether. That would result in a much reduced ongoing income for Linden Lab for this feature.

A narrower range with a regular rotation of names means a regular ongoing income.

And the way for two people to get the same last name in a partnership is for BOTH of them to change to one of the currently available names.

[Lydia Amethyst]

Honestly, they just need to choose better names. At a personal standpoint, the selection of names isn't all that thrilling to me. If they added new ones a bit more frequently we'd have better chances of getting something 'wild' idk. I just think that whoever is making them now is kinda bland.

[Alwin Alcott]

2 minutes ago, AlyceAdrift said:

Honestly, they just need to choose better names. At a personal standpoint, the selection of names isn't all that thrilling to me.

the new names are suggestions made by the users in a contest .. everybody had the chance to add theirs

[Lydia Amethyst]

Just now, Alwin Alcott said:

the new names are suggestions made by the users in a contest .. everybody had the chance to add theirs

Great. Since I knew nothing of this contest I didn't get a chance to put in my idea so I may very well never see it as an option. Welp. Guess I'm stuck being a 'Resident' forever. 

[Rowan Amore]

Yep

[Alwin Alcott]

Just now, AlyceAdrift said:

Great. Since I knew nothing of this contest

i see you'r on the forums since 2018, the contest was just before the new names got released. Guess you missed the announcements at the official canals.

Here are the names that for sure won't come back, it are the old legacy names
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Current_Last_Names

[Lydia Amethyst]

2 minutes ago, Alwin Alcott said:

i see you'r on the forums since 2018, the contest was just before the new names got released. Guess you missed the announcements at the official canals.

Here are the names that for sure won't come back, it are the old legacy names
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Current_Last_Names

Okay so there's not a thread where people can still suggest names? 
I didn't see Sakura on that list so that's good that it wasn't one prior. I just wanna know where I can suggest it at to hopefully see it soon as an option. I've been holding out on getting a name change for this particular reason, because everything up to this point even has been literally bland.

[Marianne Little]

4 minutes ago, AlyceAdrift said:

Okay so there's not a thread where people can still suggest names? 
I didn't see Sakura on that list so that's good that it wasn't one prior. I just wanna know where I can suggest it at to hopefully see it soon as an option. I've been holding out on getting a name change for this particular reason, because everything up to this point even has been literally bland.

You would not want Sakura as first name then? You can change both names for the same price, when you choose a last name. You could be Sakura Amore. 

As long as no one picked the same name combination first.

[Alwin Alcott]

6 minutes ago, AlyceAdrift said:

Okay so there's not a thread where people can still suggest names?

not that i know about. That suggestion list closed before the names were released past year. Now they add some of those to the list for available names when other active ones met a (unknown for us) amount of name-changers

[Lydia Amethyst]

1 minute ago, Marianne Little said:

You would not want Sakura as first name then? You can change both names for the same price, when you choose a last name. You could be Sakura Amore. 

As long as no one picked the same name combination first.

My other half and I want Sakura as our last name... I have been holding out hoping it will pop up.