I'm currently reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit in Japanese, but the opening to the story is confusing me a bit.
The actual text reads:
[昔々]{むかしむかし}あるところに、四[匹]{ひき}の小さなウサギがいました。彼らの[名前]{なまえ}はプロプシー、モプシー、コットンテールとピーターです。
As you can see, the first sentence is in the past tense, but the second seems to be in the present. Double checking several English versions of the text, they all have both in the past tense; and in general switching tenses in English is frowned upon.
Now, I know that Japanese treats tenses differently from English, but this seems odd to me. Thus, my question is: Can you switch tenses like this in Japanese, and if so, what (extra) nuances (if any) does it carry?
Thanks!