Hi Mark,
I've done some small research on what components would have to be
updated for the desktop-specific-names solution. I think that would
be:

- The Desktop Entry Specification,
http://standards.freedesktop.org/desktop-entry-spec/latest/
- KDE's KDesktopFile,
https://projects.kde.org/projects/kde/kdelibs/repository/revisions/master/changes/kdecore/config/kdesktopfile.cpp
- Xfce's libxfce4menu, in particular
http://git.xfce.org/xfce/libxfce4menu/tree/libxfce4menu/xfce-menu-item.c
- Gnome's libgnome-menu, in particular
http://svn.gnome.org/viewvc/gnome-menus/trunk/libmenu/desktop-entries.c

Regards,
Ambroz