Haha, gameplay-wise it's still the same - fight one guy, then immediately go on to fight another!
I don't see how...
What would happen gameplay-wise? All these "then people would play the game differently, huhuhuhu" answers are stupid - of course the game will be played differently! Don't need another captain obvious!
As far as I'm concerned, the names don't tie in to the story -that- much. If I were to change every instance of the word 'Forblaze' in FE7 to Kagu-tsuchi (The Japanese kami/god/spirit of fire, among other things), I don't think there'd be much difference plot-wise.
It would probably make for more translation errors, though. Japanese is one of those languages that translates really poorly back and forth into English!
Quick thought: Did the original Japanese translation of FE7 use Eastern references before the official translation? I was just thinking, maybe they changes around the references for ease of reading and translation!
What if the legendary/sacred weapons in FEs 6 through 8 all had only ten uses? (bar Latona, keep it at three)