This is a known issue; however, if you wanted to change their names in the meantime, you can do so using your browser's console (Accessible via Dev Tools [Ctrl+Shift+I on Chrome and Firefox]).
A character's name is stored under the alias "short," so if you wanted to name the gray goo to "Nova" for example, you'd type
into the console, as the object for the NPC is "goo". Bess is "bess" and Siegwulfe is "wulfe".
A note for the default name for the goo armor is that it has an article, so if you were to only change the short, it'd show up as "the Nova" and, using an example from the game would show up as:
You smile, relieved, and ask if the Nova would like to come with you back to your ship.
Therefore, in order to remove the article, you can use:
Which will give the following in the same scene:
You smile, relieved, and ask if Nova would like to come with you back to your ship.
I wouldn't recommend going around and changing random stuff though (only things that you can decide in normal play) because certain scenes will check a character's "short" to decide what to do, so if you randomly change it, it could cause errors in the script (First that comes to mind is the rival character's genetalia in the scene being determined via their name or vice versa).