GM Secrets: The Importance of Names

If you give any inconsequential NPC a name, he or she is suddenly the most important person in the session. If ever a PC asks an unimportant person's name, you are doomed. The adventure is now officially going off whatever carefully planned path you had set out. Accept that now Bob, Farmer guy with the Cows, is the central point of your plot. Your heroes are now cow wranglers for Bob. It is happening -- accept it, move on.