I suggest that charatcers have a "surname" command that allows them to set a shorter version of their name to which they respond. for example, a character named "Alexander" could set his surname to "alex" so that a character who wants to give him and item or tell him something could type either "tell Alexander" or the much shorter "tell alex"
In this way, characters needn't avoid longer names for fear of inconvenience, and that could be important due to the unique nature of names in TC.