The two are different. Both are cases where the player must keep separate what she knows and what her character knows, but in the case of numbers, it is ooc information, while in the case of names, it is ic information. 516 hitpoints is the link between the ic information that he is a big hard to kill brute and the code that determines how much damage he can sustain. The name is your character's name, directly linked to that character.
People can come up with plausible reasons why they might know your name: the bartender told me; I had a dream; You are famous and don't even know it. Stupid...but plausible.
On the other hand, there's no excuse for ic'ly talking about 516 "hitpoints", whatever they are.
And in practice, I've seen that in those rp muds with numbers, most people will not mention them. In those with names, very few make the effort to rp that they don't know.
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