The "real names" myth was the biggest scam played against people in the past 15 years. The media are also wholesale responsible for perpetuating that damaging trend. Historians of the future will look at the past 2 decades with disbelief.
I remember when Facebook launched I had a visceral reaction after seeing all the content being shared out in the open. My dad didn’t even want our phone number in the phonebook, and now I saw everyone else sharing every detail of their identity online.
The state does not give you name, but it registers it and uses it to recognize you in various situations. Usually the name is not enough to identify a person (and fun/disaster ensues when this is attempted) so, usually, more information is needed to identify a person.
While I don't agree that it's obvious even now that that using real names is damaging (i.e. makes things worse than anonymity/pseudonymity) the assumption that it's a scam goes 100% against Hanlon's razor.
It's pretty easy to claim that using real names online does more harm than good when pointing at a data leak but we should also consider the opportunity costs, the outcome of the alternative scenario. I'd say that all the fake and troll profiles show that anonymity makes people behave in a way that's damaging to online communication (and hence is a lot, maybe most communication is online these days, all communication). You can say that fake profiles are there anyway, which is true, but it still doesn't mean that everyone going anonymous wouldn't be a lot worse. So at best it's an undecided question as opposed to being a deliberate scam.
Facebook.