A video tutorial from the Phoenix Viewer team.
〈Display Names on Phoenix Viewer〉 By Jessica Lyon.
Here's a short summary about the name confusion.
In the past, sl login name has 2 parts: first name, last name. The first name is freely choosen by user when you opened a account, while last name is from Linden Labs (a list of last names you pick from a menu).
For example, my first name is “Xah”. My last name is “Toll”, which is from Linden Labs.
Starting sometimes this month (2010-12), Linden Labs made some changes. New account no longer have a “last name”. This is more compatible with most websites. More intuitive and easier to remember.
If you have both first and last name, and using a viewer that has only one name field, type both of your names together, separated by space. For example, i would type “Xah Toll”.
If you only have one login name and using a viewer that has both first and last name fields, type “resident” in the last name part.
To make matters more confusing, Linden Labs introduced the “display name” concept around 2010-10. Display Name has nothing to do with login name. Display name is just a name that is displayed over your avatar.
Display name is like a nick name that you like people to know you as.
In LL Viewer 2, go to the Profile in menu “Me▸My profile”, then click the “wench” icon at the top.
In Phoenix Viewer, go to menu “Edit▸Display Name...”.
Go to menu “Me▸Preferences” 【Ctrl+p】, then “General” tab, then check mark the “Usernames” box. (For LL Viewer version 2.4.0 (216989) Dec 15 2010)
Here's some LL resources on display name.