Why do I have a "contacts" area on my apple watch, but can find nothing on how to get names and numbers in there?

Well yes, contacts are automatically synced from the iPhone to your watch. That is more capable device for such data entry.

Couple things to check:

• On your iPhone, go to Settings > Apple ID Profile > iCloud and check that Contacts is toggled ON. If not, toggle it ON.

• If that does not help, try the reset action in the Watch app, under General > Reset > Reset Sync Data