RPG: First name last name apex

If it isn't blatantly obvious to every single person who reads this blog, I've pretty much run out of ideas until I at least get to completing my next RPG. In the meantime, I have just been looking at that grand list and seeing just how accurate it can be. Well let's see: Good guys will only have first names, and bad guys will only have last names. Any bad guy who only has a first name will become a good guy at some point in the game. Good guys' last name may be mentioned in the manual but they will never be referred to in the story.

Well, I wanted to argue on the first name mechanic for good guys, because practically every Final Fantasy hero from 4 onwards has both a first and a last name, but it plays the cliche straight most of the time since the last name is not mentioned. I mean, where can you hear Harvey when referring to Cecil or Joanna Farell for Rosa. Heck, Rydia doesn't even have a last name. What about Strife? Never hear Cloud called that, and hey, villains usually refer to some characters only by last names, just watch how Harry Potter is always called Potter by villainous characters (or Snape in general) and Harry by good characters. I think the only Final Fantasy character to be referred by both first AND last name would be Irvine in Final Fantasy 8, but it's really only in one cutscene and doesn't even show for the rest of the game.

But the gray area of this particular cliche would have to be the bad guys with only last names. It's honestly hard to tell since many of the villains have either both a first or last name (Luca Blight and Graham Cray from the Suikoden series, Zieg Feld from Legend of Dragoon), or will just have one name where it can be hard to tell if it's a first or last name (Lavos, Loki, Ghaleon, Zophar, Indalecio, Kefka, Sephiroth, Ultimecia). Not a whole lot of games I know of pull off the bad guy with only last name straight, heck some of those villains tend to already have a title anyways, like Emperor Barbarossa from Suikoden, or the King of the same name from Valkyrie Profile (and on that note, I mention Loki and two villains from other Suikoden games, so it's not even consistent with the series they're in).

So not a lot of games I can think of pull this trope off fully. I'd say Brave Fencer Musashi might actually be the closest, since we do have a villain with only a last name (Flatski), as well as one with a first and last (Col. Capriccola, who turns out to be Jon) who switches sides. Although we do have members of Leader's Force who go by first names, then two other members of Thirstquencher which seem to have titles and last names. Plus there's Growlanser 2's Arieta and 3's Vincent and Orpheus, although the circumstances for those are all very different. Meanwhile, Gevas and possibly Wolfgang* in 2 and Clive, Randolf, and Zion in 3 definitely don't have last names, so for a series that has every playable and several non-playable characters with full names, it's quite good at pulling this off pretty well.

Eh, names in RPGs tend to be second nature and no one really pays much attention to the nitty gritty names most of the time, unless a plot twist naturally occurs. But still, names don't mean THAT much.

*He's mostly a villain in Growlanser 2, he never gets out of that phase at all and I'm pretty sure Wolfgang isn't a last name. Then again, since you can side with his more democratic ideals, it's hard to say.