names of characters over there heads

The texture won't show up cos your mask function sets all the pixels alpha to zero which makes the whole texture invisible.

You aren't actually calling the mask function either?!

I normally colour the part I want masked in bright purple, draw what you need to it and call the mask function to alpha out the purple parts :

Function CreateNameTexture(name$,flags)
	Local Width% = StringWidth(name)*2
	Local Height% = StringHeight(name)*2
	Local texture = CreateTexture(Width,Height,flags)
	
	SetBuffer TextureBuffer(texture)
	
		Color 255,0,255
		Rect 0,0,TextureWidth( texture )-1, TextureHeight( texture ) - 1, 1
	
		Color 0,255,0
		Rect 0,0,TextureWidth(texture),TextureHeight(texture)*.1
		Rect 0,TextureHeight(texture)*.9,TextureWidth(texture),TextureHeight(texture)*.1
		
		Color 254,254,0
		Text TextureWidth(texture)*.5,TextureHeight(texture)*.5,name,1,1
		;ShadowText(name,TextureWidth(texture)*.5,TextureHeight(texture)*.5,254)
	SetBuffer BackBuffer()
	
	TextureMask( texture )
	
	Return texture
End Function

I also normally create the texture with flag 4 rather than 2 but it should still work.

Stevie