I can't speak for the NES, but I've done lots of Game Boy asm coding, and personally - although others feel differently - I prefer using the register addresses

I can't speak for the NES, but I've done lots of Game Boy asm coding, and personally - although others feel differently - I prefer using the register addresses rather than trying to memorize a bunch of unofficial names. Usually context/the sort of abundant comments asm necessitates indicates well enough what the read/write is doing, and if I want to look up the register to get a better idea of it, well...the names are unofficial, there isn't clear consensus about what these registers should be called, so it's easier to lookup the address in docs, too. Eventually the common ones you memorize, anyway; there's only a handful on these systems.