I'm pretty new to the game. Has anyone else had this problem? I couldn't find anything on the forum.

While doing the quest "El Toro Unleashed" you run across some characters stuck in a prison. You can use canon powder and blow the door open. Upon doing so a Chicken Musketeer named Jake Thornton (I'm not sure if this is the character's actual name) joined me. He was level 26 when he joined. I moved him to the end of my bench and figured I'd check him out later.

When doing the last fight of the quest in Del La Vega Manor the Chicken Ranger showed up in battle, only now his name was "Bob Bean". He died in one hit which is something I hadn't seen before. After the battle I discovered that not only was the character now level 1 instead of 26, he had somehow moved to the slot right next to my first mate (22% join chance!). I also noticed that his name had changed again, he was "Flint" now. I am unable to move this character to a different spot in my lineup without him reverting right back as soon as I leave an area. Any time I go to a new screen he reappears in slot 2 beside my first mate and has a new randomly generated name. I don't dare waste any training tomes to verify that his level will reset to 1 as well.

I sent in a bug ticket but is there anything else I can do at this point? Is this something that has come up before?

Yeah, when I got mine (I was level 50 so he was 52 and has 111 accuracy) his name was Hank, then I left Castillo Sapo and how he's Ethan Smith. I liked Hank much better than Ethan Smith

All companions should now be restored. More info here.

Thanks!