I've wondered if Novak would've worded it differently given the chance to rewrite it. I'll be interested to see what he has to say when his promised tell-all on this comes out.
I think her name, per se, didn't mean anything much to him back then. He mentioned it only as a detail in a larger story. The whole notion that her name was mentioned to "punish" Joseph Wilson is a pure fabrication cooked up by David Corn (and possibly some co-conspirators in setting up President Bush). It quickly became the media's template for the story, and they have never abandoned it.