What's a font name table and why do so many free fonts have a "minor issue" with its structure?
In TTF fonts, the "name" table contains information on the font. There's a table here which, if you're interested, gives you the exact information on what the name table contains.

I've had the same problem with fonts in the past. Most of the time they work fine, although sometimes they won't show up in all applications. With some Googling I found a guide which fixes the name table structure.