What is being conveyed by that choice? In the novel it might be as clear as you say, I have not read it but I think I provided a valid reading of the place his namesake takes up in the film narrator’s mind-he doesn’t understand the names relevance any more than the rest of the events he experienced

Like, we see that Forrest himself is not racist- he’s doesn’t have a personal reason to be and doesn’t have the facilities to be convinced He did grow up in a place steeped in racism and did his best to be a good person with what he had in a complex society with a complex history he doesn’t grasp