Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-24674051-20160625215037/@comment-24674051-20160724213117

I think the times that the characters did NOT get code names, the character being portrayed was already known to be appearing (such as Elsa, Anna, and Kristoff). But we saw with Merida's casting that they tried to throw us off (and did a reasonable job) by redirecting to Rumple's mom. Since a redirect like that would likely not work a second time, they redirected to characters that would be believable to be on the show (and ones that some of the fans wanted on the show). had they gone with just generic names, I think people would have picked up on them being Al and Jas sooner than they did.

this approach actually did something else in favor of the show's casting. We know now (if we didn't already know) not to trust ANY name that is placed with a casting call, so the next time, they might actually use the real name, and we might or might not believe them. and since the goal is to sow confusion and misdirection, then they are almost guaranteed to achieve that goal.