What if you logged in day one and we're prompted to pick a shard instead of a server.
Pvp shard
Pve shard
Rp PVP shard
Rp pve shard
All with a designation number so you can say to your friends hey I rolled on pvp shard 7. You then play on that shard every time you log in. If the population keeps growing more shards are introduced.
After the initial rush of players and tourists, whenever things stabilize the shards are merged equally and given true server names and then you never see shards again.
Names in this situation would only exist once per server type meaning I would be the only Reeb across all pve servers if that's where I started. That makes the condensing of shards as simple as combining the low pop ones to a stable population slap a server name on it and done. If a shard was so popular it had hit the server cap on it's own give it a name and done.