How Epic Fantasy Writes So Many Characters at Once

[pmmg]

As one who went back and named a lot of unnamed characters, I will say, I feel it added a bit more stage business, and gave me another way to address the characters in the scene other than 'the first guard said'. I find it helped to color out the story...I think...

But, there are still some characters with no names in the tale.

 

[Romy]

other than 'the first guard said'

As with Tolkien above, it adds weight to the world. It is only about 20 people walking around.
While the shire seems a bit of a small lost part of the world, nobody is really interested in, we do know it contains several families of hobbits. A family can be anything from a household to several generations.

You can also think about how and when to use them...
In life, I am very bad with names and rarely use them, it takes me very long to learn them and you get one chance to get it right... But this gives an impression of not being interested in a person.
A teacher that still knows your name after decades... usually does not mean you were the best at school.

Imagine the head of the guards, he knows guard 2, 'hi Tom' but not the one next to him. He might not know or he might not care.
At the entrance to the castle, everybody greets Tom, nobody the other one. That might say something about Tom...

 

[JBCrowson]

Okay, throwing down a few caution flags. Keep in mind that we've got guiderails on discussions of religion and we're skirting pretty close to the edge.

Yup, reckon we crossed the demilitarised zone about 10 posts earlier.