What does Hawthorne gain by including the names of actual persons and places?

Authors, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne in "Young Goodman
Brown", tend to use names of actual people and places for one main
reason.

The main reason which authors tend to do this is to
allow readers to apply any prior knowledge to their reading. What this does is allows a
reader to bring prior knowledge to a reading so as to more readily engage in the reading
or bring memories forward so as to help them to connect new information to the current
reading.

Also, this information allows readers to more
readily understand the historical aspects, dialects, ideologies, and culture of the
setting used in the text. For example, if reading a text placed in the South, one would
expect to read dialogues which depict a specific slang typically used in the
area.

This use of actual people and places helps readers to
understand what is happening in the community/society which would lead to development of
theme or ideologies examined.