I see that the names conundrum is being discussed again, with a thanks to a blog post from Hamlet Au, followed by a reference to Jira SVC-7125 it seems that there may be some light at the end of the tunnel:
“It’s clear there is a lot of interest in SVC-7125. The intent was for users to specify their last name using the Display Names feature found in users’ profiles, which most Viewers now support. For those that haven’t used Display Names yet, you can also set them on the web: https://my.secondlife.com/settings/profile.
Know that we hear you and value your passion and that we are currently reviewing some of the decisions that were made with the username /Display Names implementation.”
The issue here really though, is that Linden Lab can’t really go back to the old system, one of the reasons they moved to the new system was because they realised that plenty of people didn’t want to fanny around trying to pick a combination of first name and last name that suited them, a single name is easier, however the process really needed more options somewhere down the line.