Renaming Photos People

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Level 1

13 points

Renaming Photos People

In early use of Photos (probably as iPhotos), I mistakenly pressed "enter" with a first name when a full first-last name was offered. I thought the full name was being selected. As a result I sometimes have several versions of a single named person. I've done a ragtag job of combining these profiles, but have one troublesome name. My son-in-law displays as "Greg" in his main profile. Searching for him by last name displays him correctly with his key photo, but double-clicking him brings up the full set of photos (and faces) which are simply labeled, "Greg". I have added his last name in all the ways suggested by other questioners and often gotten the intermediate message the name has been changed. But it has not. My photos are on iCloud; does that make a difference?

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.2

Posted on May 12, 2021 11:18 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

léonie

Level 10

197,117 points

May 12, 2021 10:49 PM in response to RickPharmD

That is exactly what will happen, when you are using the name suggestions from the Contacts in Photos. Photos knows the full name of the contact, but is displaying the short name only. Either avoid the name suggestions from the Contacts completely (write the name in a way, so Photos cannot find the name in the Contacts by using a vacation of the name, for example with an underscore instead of the space between the parts of the name) or change the preferences for the short name format in the Contacts.app as described in my previous post. Changing the short name format will work in Photos 6 on macOS 11 Big Sur, not in earlier versions. On earlier versions of Photos for Mac we have to break the connection to the Contacts completely by writing the name differently from the name used in Contacts.

If you are using iCloud Photos and are syncing with several devices, the short name format should be changed on all devices in the Contacts, also on your iPad or iPhone. Then try to name the People album for Greg again - I'd try first to name it completely differently, "Gregory_Fixed" or similar, wait for the name change to take effect, quit Photos.

Make sure the short name format in the Contacts.app is set to the full name, then launch photos again and change back to the correct name of Greg.

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Answer 2

léonie

Level 10

197,117 points

May 12, 2021 11:42 AM in response to RickPharmD

Photos wants to use a short name for the People album. If the name of a person has been taken from your Contacts and Photos can tell, that the first name is "Greg" from the Contact card, it will simply display the first name as the short name for the first Greg you name, even if you enter the full name.

It helps to change the Preferences in the Contacts. Try to set the short name format to "Full name", to prevent Photos from shortening the name to the first name in this silly way.

Launch Contacts and open the Contacts > Preferences
In the General tab set "Short Name Format" to "Full Name"
Then restart Photos.

The "First name only" may be fitting for family members and friends, where we may be using the first name only, but it is highly embarrassing and unprofessional for the work contacts, for example customers. I am really glad that Apple is now allowing us to change this, this the upgrade to macOS 11 Big Sur.

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Answer 3

Old Toad

Level 10

210,437 points

May 12, 2021 11:32 AM in response to RickPharmD

In the People view click and drag the erroneously named group onto the correctly named group

and you'll be asked to merge the dragged group into the correctly named group.

That will get them renamed and grouped together.

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Answer 4

RickPharmD Author

Level 1

13 points

May 12, 2021 12:40 PM in response to Old Toad

Thanks for the quick reply. I may have explained the problem unclearly. I think I've consolidated all the various non-different people into one. It's just that the one has a first name that I cannot convert to a full name as for all my other people. In the images you'll see the vestige of "Greg" that I cannot change to add a last name. Any ideas on that? The first image shows Greg among all my people; the second is a shot of the slide show after double-clicking him.

I read in another discussion the advice from Apple Support to delete the person and then start a new search to ID him all over again, with the full name.

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Answer 5

RickPharmD Author

Level 1

13 points

May 13, 2021 8:49 AM in response to léonie

BINGO! Thank you @léonie. That did it. I have my iPhone and iPad synced to Photos and each of those had other settings for Settings > Contacts > Short Name. I've changed them both to turn off Short Name and Photos allows the change to add Greg's last name. The curious thing, though, I was earlier able to give last names to other People and merge duplicates without problem. Maybe Greg's earliest short-named photo predated the others or my settings on the iPhone and iPad. Whatever the reason, the problem is solved. Thank you.

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Renaming Photos People

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