I know you shouldnt in the same neighbourhood but can you create characters of the same name but in different neighbourhoods and if you do so is it ok to run SimPE with it?

Evie, yes you can have different characters of the same name. There are townies like this already, though they are in different households (I think).
As far as I can tell, you do not have do do anything special, just create, re-name, etc, exactly as you would for any sim.