When to choose character instead of factor in R?
Factors are stored as numbers and a table of levels. If you have categorical data, storing it as a factor may save lots of memory.

For example, if you have a vector of length 1,000 stored as character and the strings are all 100 characters long, it will take about 100,000 bytes. If you store it as a factor, it will take about 8,000 bytes plus the sum of the lengths of the different factors. 

Comparisons with factors should be quicker too because equality is tested by comparing the numbers, not the character values.

The advantage of keeping it as character comes when you want to add new items, since you are now changing the levels. 

Store them as whatever makes the most sense for what the data represent. If name is not categorical, and it sounds like it isn't, then use character.