How does Mail decide?

The main window of Apple's Mail application is called -- in the "Window" menu, at least -- the "Message Viewer" window. In one pane of that window -- the upper-right pane -- all the messages for a selected mailbox are displayed in order, and you can change the order by clicking on the header of any column. Two of the columns -- From and To -- tell From whom any given message originated and To whom the message was addressed.

In those two columns -- From and To -- you will see either the name or the address of the person. For example, a complete email address usually takes this form:

Some Person <theirusername@theirISP.org>

I'm calling "Some Person" the name, and "<theirusername@theirISP.org>" the address, of the complete email address. You can see this form in the headers of any message in the lower pane of the Message Viewer window -- provided that Mail -> Preferences -> Viewing -> "Use Smart Addresses" is UNchecked. (If it is checked, you will see only the name part -- i.e., the "Some Person" part -- of the complete address, in the message headers.)

Now, back to the From and To columns. If you look carefully at the list of messages, you might notice that entries in the From and To columns sometimes use the name part of the complete email address, and sometimes the address part of the complete email address. This makes a big difference when you are sorting the list to look for a particular person -- you have to know whether you're looking for their name or their address.

But it seems that you cannot know this! Mail puts either the name or the address into the From or To column, but I cannot figure out how you could predict which one it will use! Or can you? That is my question. Is there a way to predict this?

I have observed that, for any given person, Mail will always use either one or the other. But for different people, Mail might use one or the other. For example, for [not their real addresses]...

c w <craig_waer@sbcglobal.net>, Mail always puts Craig's name -- "c w" -- into the column

but for

Mike Fall <MEFallWear@aol.com>, Mail will always put Mike's address -- "MEFallWear@aol.com" -- into the column.

These two people* are treated differently, but why? How does Mail decide which to use?

--Gil

* - These are not their real email addresses, I have changed a few letters in each. In doing so I may have unintentionally obscured a clue.