spoiler alert: there are no “real”, official radical names, only common nicknames.
There is an originally chinese system of 214 radicals where each kanji is identified by only one radical, and it’s mostly only useful for dictionaries.
Yes, WK made the radical names up, because the radicals will appear in many many kanji, and you need a name to call them by to remember them. Then a Kanji is presented as a story with the radical names in it. That’s a great way for the brain to learn. For example, the kanji for “write down” has the radicals “self” and “say”. When you need to say something to yourself, you write it down (e.g. in a Journal).
Unfortunately, the stories aren’t always so intuitive, but often the weird stories are easier to remember, and this is pretty much the best system there is.
If you skip radicals, it’s very likely you will not be able to remember kanji effectively.
and yes, you can add your own synonyms for meanings and vocabulary.
the beginning is slow, but it will very quickly become a huge workload if you always do all lessons.