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This seems to be mostly resolved, but I thought I'd chime in, as I've recently had an experience that is germane to this issue about what harm could come from someone knowing your real name.

A couple of weeks ago, my man was bored and so googled his own name.  On the first page of results was one of those people-finder sites.  This one listed his name, his birthplace, his address, his email address, his various IM names and his phone number, along with the names of his parents, sibling and even my name (despite the fact that we are not legally linked in any way).  These sites crawl through the many public archives available, so he has no control whatsoever over what info they display.  All of this information is available to anyone.  For free.  And all you need to know is his real name.  He was so freaked out by this, we changed our phone numbers and would probably have moved, except that we just bought this house and moving is not an easy prospect anymore.

Now, it's definitely true that most of the people at Fanime don't care about any of this and aren't paying the slightest bit of attention to anyone's badges.  However, it's possible that there may be someone of less-than-honorable intent amongst the other hundreds of people.  Badges are not required to enter the building or hang out in the halls, so you can't be certain that everyone is actually a paid attendee.  And while the chances are low that someone would be harvesting names, it's not impossible.

I'm definitely on the side of "it's better to be safe than sorry".  If real names must be on the badges, making them much smaller does minimize the risk.  I'd personally feel more comfortable with them placed on the back.  Yaoi-con puts stickers with the attendee's real name on the back of the badge, so they don't have to print them two-sided.

I spent most of my time in the artist alley, even though I didn't get a table this year.  All the artists were simply a delight to talk to.  Plus, I got some awesome stuff.  ;)

Besides AA, I loved the steampunk panels.  They were lots of fun and very informative.  And made me wish I lived closer to the Bay area.  ^.^;;

Overall, our experience with the staff this year was good, with the exception of the general rudeness of ALL of the rovers we came across.  I don't have any names, as none of them were directly rude to us, it was all general crowd control stuff.  However, my mother came with us this year and I was absolutely mortified about how the rovers kept yelling at her, to move, to stand against the wall while in line, etc.  She was very confused about why they were always yelling at her, since her infraction was always that she wasn't moving fast enough.  She's a very lively 60-year-old, but she's just not as fast as the kids.

I understand that crowd control is a big job with a con as large as Fanime.  I just think a little basic politeness would go a long way towards how the general con-goer views the rovers.  Throughout the con, never once did I hear a "please".  I think less people would be commenting on the rudeness of the rovers if they spent more time requesting (i.e. "Please show me your badge") than yelling orders.  And my poor mother wouldn't have gone through the entire con worried about if she was standing or walking in the right place.  I actually had to tell her that it was okay to sit at the tables set up outside the video room areas and that no one was going to yell at us for it.