I have Lion and I have an iPad. The contacts on the two machines are not properly linked using iCloud (I can create groups and add names, but sometimes the names are not updated between the machines)

On the iPad, look in contacts and see if you have more than one group. If it says "all contacts" on the top and there is no red slash to chose lists, then you have just one group. If you see the slash and can choose contact groups, then obviously you have more than one. You probably have a mail account on the iPad setup for contacts and iCloud also setup for contacts.

Go to that mail account on your computer and export those contacts to a vCard file, and import that to iCloud contacts (using the web interface for each). Now with one list, turn contacts off for that account on your iPad so you don't see duplicates.