It's not like they need "English" names for RPG characters. I didn't know until a few years ago I think, when I was randomly browsing the Internet. I thought someone was making up names until I found it was their actual names in the Japanese version.
But remember, this was in the early to mid 90s. They never suspected at the time that there would be much communication between the Japanese gaming community and the English-speaking one, nor that people would care how "close to the original" their localizations were. Changing things around to make the final product more appealing to the target audience was par for the course. The same thing happened with anime, of course, albeit earlier - such travesties as "Robotech" would probably be impossible today.
Not to say that Ted Woolsey's localizations were bad - I rather enjoyed them, actually, and look forward to eventually having a high enough Japanese reading skill to go back and play the originals for an entirely new experience.
Oh, I know. My main point there was that characters in RPG/fantasy setting are kind of expected to have unusual names. Even thought a few are changed, it's not usually to "regular" American names as would a 4Kids or Nelvana anime adaptation. Heck, Tina's name was changed to Terra in FFVI to make it sound more unusual, I think.
I've found SNES era localizations to be rather enjoyable, though I've never played originals and wouldn't know enough Japanese to judge the differences (other than with name changes and a few things). I just wish Seiken Densetsu 3 would have been brought over then too. :(
