When I was laying down the first draft of my current work in progress, I somehow managed to give every walk-on a name, right down to the dog. That was immediately corrected, although the dog is an important side-kick and still has a name.

Because a reader can only keep so many character names straight in their mind, I was forced to whittle down my cast of thousands. An author should introduce however many characters it takes to tell the story, but should also use common sense.

In a scifi or fantasy tale, naming can get out of hand, sometimes with every single object or utensil, down to the  most common of tools being given a weird name. A hammer should just be be a hammer, please.

I consider that too much detail, and unnecessary. Think of all the names the reader must try to keep straight in a…