Senders' Names Now Reversed in Mail Inbox (iOS 14.2)

Since upgrading to iOS 14.2 the names of senders in my Inbox of Apple's Mail app are reversed. For example, emails that used to show as coming from "The New York Times" now show as coming from "York Times The New York." Or instead of "Shell Card" it now shows as "Card Shell." It seems iOS used to recognize business names and show them as such. It looks like it now treats business names the same way it always displayed individual names (Last Name, First Name). I know this doesn't affect functionality, but it sure is aggravating.


Anyone else experiencing this and is there a solution?

iPhone 11 Pro

Posted on Nov 11, 2020 11:02 AM

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Posted on Nov 16, 2020 9:01 AM

The change of contacts display does impact how my email senders are named. I had the goofy issue with 14.2. Many other threads on this issue, several noting the problem only in inbox and not other folders so clearly a bug not intended. I don’t know why contact display order impacts mail senders, including many not in my contacts (likely the case fir the vast majority of iPhone users), but it clearly does. However, if I change sort order in contacts, as with others, I also have the first, last display in contact as well as mail. So mail senders read normally like they used to but contacts is harder to read because first name is displayed first which, to me, is visually confusing and makes it harder to find what I’m looking for.


I will note that after changing the display order to first, last and seeing the mailbox senders fixed, I tried changing sort order in contacts back to last, first and found that, while contacts reverted to my long-standing and preferred display of last, first, the mail sender display did NOT change back to the weird last, first order that took over with 14.2. This is good. I quit the mail app and relaunched and found it has retained the corrected sort order. I have changed it back and forth several times in preferences and, since changing it back the very first time, changing contact display preference has ceased to effect how mail senders are displayed. No matter what I set display order to, only contacts change (as one would expect), but not mail sender display, which stays “normal”, for lack of a better term.


Don’t know how long it will last (hopefully permanent), but for the moment I have the display order I want in mail and the one I want in contacts and the preference to change sort order is now only changing the display in contacts with mail unchanged since the first change to correct it. Clearly and unequivocally a bug.

199 replies

Nov 17, 2020 10:03 AM in response to Analoglife

Suggest reading other posts. The issue of display in mail is reason people are posting. Everyone knows how to alter Contact views. The issue is that somehow mail sender name display has become tied to Contact display settings in iOS 14.2 when it has not been tied to this previously. Fixing the mail sender name display causes Contacts to display with first name, then last name. Most on this thread have indicated they don't like that trade off.

Nov 17, 2020 11:04 AM in response to livin1965

You are welcome to paste in links to the other posts . Search function in this forum is useless.


Contacts will always display first name in column 1 and last name in column 2.

The sort order by First or by Last name is affected by the Sort setting. Sort field shown in Bold.


I can’t replicate the Subject re-ordering problem. Maybe a redacted screen shot might help.


Nov 19, 2020 12:51 PM in response to kayo8

That is exactly the problem... Apple gives users the option to change the sort order and the display order for Contacts, but the Email app needs to add that same option, too. I don't want my sort and display order selections for my contacts to affect how my email senders are displayed. Contact lists and Sender lists are NOT the same. Many senders are not even contacts.

C'mon, Apple. Stop trying to decide for me how my data is sorted and presented. Give me the options and let me decide for myself.

Nov 21, 2020 5:55 AM in response to LD150

Incorrect. Changing the display of Contacts to "first, last" corrects the email sender naming convention problem, but then causes contacts to be, as one would expect, displayed with first name first and then last name after that. Makes no sense to virtually everyone responding here, myself included. Visually having the last name appear first and then the first name is what I have always had set and, judging by responses here, the same is true for most on this thread. Why on earth Apple has randomly with 14.2 linked the email sender naming convention to Contacts display order is mind-boggling. It's either a bug or, IMO, a poor engineering decision. I hope it's corrected promptly and I note that 14.2.1 doesn't fix the issue for me.

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Senders' Names Now Reversed in Mail Inbox (iOS 14.2)

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