You could use word wrap, but fix the width of the column so that the vast majority of names didn't wrap.
Obviously, to do that, you need to figure out the statistics for name lengths... I confess I'm more of an Excel specialist than any other form of programming these days, but given a list of names and plowing them into column A of a spreadsheet, I can run a macro to give me some stats on the lengths of the names in points and pixels... (using calculations based on formula found here:
http://processtrends.com/pg_charts_cell_size.htm).
Obviously, that also depends on the type and size of fonts that people use as default on their browsers... but again, the vast majority of users probably stick with the default fonts, so as long as it is sized for the vast majority - no problems... so the exercise is not foolproof, and a bit of further analysis/extrapolation is required.
SO - here is my very unscientific analysis of the user names that have posted in this forum on this subject - obviously not a representative sample! - and tested initially using 10 point Arial font.
[smarttable]+-+
{}{Arial 10 point}{}{Arial 12 point}{}{Verdana 10 point}{}{Verdana 12 point}{}
{Name}{Points}{Pixels}{Points}{Pixels}{Points}{Pixels}{Points}{Pixels}
[stm][3.43][22.15][4.14][25.7][3.71][23.55][5][30]
[jase][3.71][23.55][4.71][28.55][4.14][25.7][5.57][32.85]
[jmkool][5.71][33.55][7][40][6.14][35.7][8.43][47.15]
[Quatar][5.86][34.3][7.29][41.45][6.71][38.55][8.57][47.85]
[HasniM][6.57][37.85][8.14][45.7][6.86][39.3][9][50]
[ax2groin][7.29][41.45][9.14][50.7][8.14][45.7][10.57][57.85]
[Lunarius][7.29][41.45][9][50][8][45][10.43][57.15]
[rogar308][7.43][42.15][9.71][53.55][8.57][47.85][10.86][59.3]
[adrasteia1][8.86][49.3][11.29][61.45][10.14][55.7][13.14][70.7]
[praguepride][9.86][54.3][12.86][69.3][11.29][61.45][14.57][77.85]
[matthewfenn][10.71][58.55][13.14][70.7][12.86][69.3][16.14][85.7]
[MILLANDSON][12.14][65.7][15.29][81.45][12.57][67.85][16.14][85.7]
[PushBarToOpen][14][75][17.43][92.15][15.14][80.7][19.29][101.45]
[Alexei Yaruk-Mundhenk][20.29][106.45][24.14][125.7][22.57][117.85][28.43][147.15]
+-+[/smarttable]
Here are two graphs for the Arial 10 and Arial 12 Histograms - looking at pixels.
http://www.matthew.fenn.dsl.pi...xampleHistograms.gif
Even with such a small sample, a classic bell curve can be just about made out.
Obviously, with a much larger selection of character names - and I'm sure Jase probably has the ability to extract that from his database - a much more detailed analysis of the data could be performed and a value could probably be come with that would cope with a suitably high percentage of names and give you a value in points (or pixels) for a particular common font/size combo - I've only done the graphs for Arial 10 and Arial 12, but it could easily be redone for each of the most common font names and sizes... in fact, you could probably simply extrapolate up/down for each of the font sizes, since the size ratio of sample sentences between fonts tend to be pretty steady.
Anyway, once you have those chosen max col width values for each of the common font/sizes, the web page could presumably figure out which font/size the user is using and set the column width to the appropriate value.
