A recent data point on name changes... I think the wikipost is pretty out of date now. That still says:
Name changes are allowed but must be called in for change and is subject to change fee($125 --exempt if the name change involves a passenger who has status).
I have a companion fare ticket that I booked for me + a friend, and tried to change to the same friend + his family member (so one pax stays the same, the second pax with status has a name change). This was a wholly unused ticket, attempting to change before the date of the first flight.
Seems like it isn't possible to do any name changes now. This had nothing to do with the fact that I booked a companion fare -- the reps made it sound like there are no name changes allowed across the board, for any AS-issued tickets, unless it's a minor name correction.
I then found
Alaska's name transfer policy, which claims that it's possible for $125 (sometimes waived with status) for tickets booked by travel agents, but not possible through Alaska's own call centers. I called back and asked a rep about this policy specifically; the rep ran the question up the chain and got back to me to confirm that name transfers are possible to be input directly into the GDS by travel agents, but that any ticket purchased on alaskaair.com is not eligible for name transfers in any way.
I'm not at all surprised (this is the answer I expected), I just thought it was worth sharing since I don't see any recent data points in this thread that contradict the answer in the wikipost.