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Things have definitely changed. When I was studying Japanese and during my two trips to Japan in the 1990s, most people had first names with fairly standard kanji that were quite easy to read. The use of uncommon/nonintuitive kanji in names, and including puns and word play in names, has increased greatly since then. One example mentioned which I have actually seen multiple times is the character 月 (tsuki, "moon") being pronounced Runa (Luna), because Luna means "moon."

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Here are a couple of articles you might enjoy.

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A short intro:
http://akihabaranews.com/kira-kira-names/

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A longer, more technical article:
https://lab.kuas.ac.jp/~jinbungakkai/pdf/2016/i2016_01.pdf