Good stuff. I don't consider it gamey for a villager to know they don't have any fellow villager with that name and description (the description part isn't visible, but I'd expect quest givers to actually provide some info on who they're after beyond what's stated in the dialog). Thus, the absent option would basically be an automatic: "No, we don't have anyone with that name and description here".
The same name is bad enough, but the same name and "profession" can definitely be annoying. Fortunately, both old men with the same name happened to be in the same building when I got a quest direction to one of them.
Names: I've found Sami:s but no Erkka:s, so I hope that's been rectified
Otherwise, in the naming department I've seen lots of names that seem out of place/time:
- Anna, seems like a Scandinavian import. There are quite a few of those, although some have Finnish spelling (like Aarne the Eagle). I guess they could fit in on the western side, though.
- Names like Natasha and Katushka seem slavic, and could be pushed to the eastern side.
- A lot of names seem suspiciously Christian, e.g Tuomas.
However, weeding out names goes opposite to the desired direction of more name variability...