A solution to the loss of names due to transfers

There's plenty of not catching on to go around Raith. You still haven't caught onto the idea that the only thing that Burnig Sea and Old Republic have in common is that they are MMO's and your characters have names.

You misunderstood. What if someone wanted to keep both names, but someone else already had that. A surname just adds more characters to the name. Billy Jones transferred, and he couldn't be Billy Jones again, because someone else already got it. How did they solve that? Forcing the guy to change one of the names. He didn't want to, so he did change it, then went to the forums to complain and offer a half-thought idea on how to fix things. Billy Jones is identified by being Billy Jones, not Billy James or Billy Jone. Why would he want to change his surname? He was there when the game launched and picked that name and played with it for a while.

maybe add some character to the name itself? when I played POTBS I was Billy Jack Bishop, lucky for me the server that I was on didn't force me to transfer but if someone had taken that name I would just work around it, at least I could keep my first name and lastname:

such as Billy bones Bishop while my previous name Billy Jack Bishop was being used by another player etc

nicknames would be an interesting feature to add to the legacy system, remember Ben Kenobi went by Obi Wan Kenobi, which could be used to recognize each individual player while one player is named John Smith, with another by Jon Smith, this feature could also be used on players that prefer to hide their legacy name

Regardless of how many names you have on that game, all it does is just adds more characters for a longer name. So your overall argument is invalid, especially when you offered a solution that other people have already offered and you seem to ignore. Use a different character. There are plenty of alt codes for plenty of letters that appear the same, but have some sort of diacritical mark. It's sad how you want to suggest what's in your OP, then just claim "I would just work around it."

Taking this post I quoted into account:
If your character name on SWTOR was John, then you transferred and lost your name, you should just make it Jon. If not, then Jaughn. If not that, then Jðhn or something similar. That should be the solution of loss of names, not that there should be numerous John players that have different legacy names. Especially when the system has the identifier as the first name only. If they added second names, then it would be the same as just allowing the current name system to have a space in it.

Overall, one or two identifier names doesn't matter when it comes to loss of names. One makes a lot less confusion than two, though. Could you imagine if you have these names on your friend list? John James, John Jame, Jon James? Would you seriously be able to remember who is who?

It would be nice to see a John Smith and a Jon Smith, or even a John Doe and John Smith interacting on the same server status

The alt codes is another flawed attempt in the naming policy, they are more like cheat codes more than anything else, they aren't a solution, they are apart of the problem such as Jðhn. Players that prefer to use a single name would have to go with a nickname to identity them, this would avoid the confusion, since players do seems to value their first names more overall, but that doesn't mean that players value their legacy names any less, why make everything unique? it just causes major problems with the community especially now after the transfers.

It would be nice to see a John Smith and a Jon Smith, or even a John Doe and John Smith interacting on the same server status, we can already add siblings and foes to our legacy family tree's why can't we do the same with actual players? this would be another interesting feature to uphold.

This still doesn't solve the issue.
If I am "John Smith" on server A and I transfer to server B where there is already "John Smith" then I have to change my name. Putting a space in the middle doesn't change this issue in the slightest. POTBS has this exaclt issue - the (full) name must be unique and when transferring, name conflicts can happen which require renames.

"John Smith" and "Jon Smith" are two different names - just like 'John" and "Jôhn" are two different names.

As far as I can come up with, the only alternative is to make names globally unique. As I've said before, if I were designing it, I'd do that. Bioware, however, didn't ask me. :-)

Sooner or later Raith, you're going to have to learn that just because you don't like it, doesn't mean that it's flawed.

Why make everything unique? simply put, because it has to be.

If your going to name a character then do so accordingly, without using names like Jðhn, Bàstila or skywalkêr they don't help the system at all because basically it's taking the easy way out by using cheap coding to advance in any name they want, not only does it look silly but it's also a cheat as well in which does make the naming policy flawed.

A slight name change is only minor compared to a major name change, for example I lost both my username and legacy name due to transfer, but I value my legacy name more that's really the only difference. While someone else could be John Smith and you were John Smith on another server but now you have to pick a new one, you could try Jon, or Jonah meanwhile you are able to keep your legacy name just with a slight name change.

I much rather risk my username than my legacy name, it would be nice if you could add another player to your family tree while still maintaining the same legacy names as he or she does, except our names would have to be different.