At least for characters, there's the "URL-Friendly Name" field directly beneath the "Name" field - this lets you create a slug name. For example, I have [[:tisk]] and [[:marli]] and [[:snarkbabe289]] instead of "Michelle 'Tisk' Saint-Chant" or "Marli Krolik" or "Nicole Matthews".
Comments
[[:1234 | slug name]] = slug name
Uou may have to remove the spaces around the "|".