Question about names and appearances

Hi everyone, new around here.

My question is probably silly and very indicative of the fact I'm a noob, but I would like to know: how come in DW (and AW too) you choose your name and appearance from a list? Is it an important part of character creation aimed at stimulating your thought process by giving you hard limits or would it be all the same to decide on a different name from those listed, or on different physical traits?

Thank you,
Rose-

I run a lot of one-shots and convention games, and I find it just simplifies people's character creation process. For the most part, there are enough options that you can get whatever effect you want. And if someone wants to go "off script," then that's fine too.

Aah, I get it, it's to simplify things in the case of conventions or when you can't come up with something! So one can always ignore them, or just use them as guidelines, and come up with a different name or a different aesthetic if they have the time...

Thank you for your answer, it makes a lot more sense now!

Correct!

Although some people get more or less mileage out of the consistency of lists, as well (and various hacks of AW do this to greater or lesser extent). For instance, making all the names in their gameworld sound like they have the same flavour can be important to some people, and sticking to lists can accomplish that. You could also be making some kind of statement with the various lists ("Only people from the Rich playbook have the option to be "Fat" in my game", "Only people who work in the verdant fields have the option to be tall", etc). I don't think DW does this all that much, though - the lists seem to be a grab-bag of stuff to inspire you most of the time.

If there's a list, I choose from it.