Yeah, I think it's pretty silly to let you name damn near everything but not have a system in place to locate anything quickly and easily. In one of the cities I'm planning, which I'm not playing to "play a game with" but more make a living model city, I'll be naming hundreds of people and wouldn't want to have to just find them at random if I'm wondering what a specific person is up to.
And it's been a while since I've played SimCity 4, is that feature a mod? The only thing I remember was being able to add sims that you'd made in The Sims. Is there a way to add/rename citizens in your town without making them in the Sims first?
Yes. Just like you could add a character from the sims, you could add a random sim into your city that functioned in the same way.