Eorzeapedia: Will surnames be optional? If not, how will you make it easier to send /tells to other players?
Tanaka: It’s going to be mandatory. You have to have a surname. The surname and the name will be unique. There will only be one person on the server who has that name. However, you will have a sort of short version – a nickname of the full name. So for example, Saori Hill will be my full name, but if you make it remember “Saori”, then you only have to use “Saori” to /tell someone.
Eorzeapedia: Is that nickname chosen by the player during the character creation?
Tanaka: When you make a /tell for the first time, if you type in “Saori”, you will have every Saori in every world appearing in the results. So you select which one is going to be Saori for yourself. The user will decide what the nickname is going to be for the other person.