When addressing the masses, he only spoke in parables.
Matthew 13:34: Jesus spoke all these things to the crowd in parables; he did not say anything to them without using a parable.
Mark 4:34: He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when he was alone with his own disciples, he explained everything.
The story of Lazarus and the rich man was told to the masses. It was a parable.It is not the only parable in the Bible that used "real" names.
In addition, parables used known physical realities (pearl, etc,) as corresponding to spiritual realities (the kingdom of God, etc.). But if the Lord was speaking in a parable about a man who died and was in torments, then for the first and only time He would be using science fiction, for according to annihilationists there is no postmortem ongoing conscious torment.Why would Jesus tell a parable that was false, misleading and contrary to the supposed reality that there is no conscious existence after death? It would be like Jesus saying that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a rock that a man threw in the ground and it grew up and became the greatest of camels. If you have Jesus basing a parable on something that was completely unconnected to any kind of reality, an explanation of what the camel and the rock supposedly represent would still be irrelevant and unresponsive to the question of why Jesus would use crazy, false and misleading fiction to illustrate something.
Cordially,