The problem more lies within people whom you do not have physically around you or a preexisting conversation with. For instance, if you want to send a tell to someone who is only a minor acquaintance and you have only naturally memorized their given name you are stuck unable to message them.
Shouldn't a minor aquaintance be on your friends list? You can /tell people on your friends list through the friend list interface even if you can't spell their name.

Even if not, they have to have sent you a message in say shout party or tell at some point in the past, or they aren't an aquaintance, in which case you have something to click on for the proposed feature, and on top of that, unless they're getting rid of it, there's the audience section in autotranslate.