AirDrop showing the wrong name and picture with iOS 7

Note that the Contacts Only setting requires that you be logged in to your iCloud account (in the iCloud screen of Settings), as AirDrop uses your iCloud-synced contacts list.

In addition, your device must include the other device’s primary Apple ID in his or her contact record.

That being said, the Apple ID may be where your issue is if you are all sharing the same. That is how it identifies the user has an iOS device. The Fact that it is mixing names and photos means there is more than one identity linked to that Apple ID.

Im having this issue as well. I have 2 children my husband and I all using the same apple id and syncing to the same acount but we all have our own email addresses and phone numbers. I am showing up as my daughter, my husband is showing up as my son and my kids have not updated to iOS 7 yet. With imessage and Facetime ther are settings you can go and choose which addresses to be identified as. Air Drop has no tab in settings. I cannot figure out how to fix it.

Looks like we may have to live with it then, as having their own Apple ID will not work as my children are all 14 and under, Airdrop would have been handy for pic share and stuff, but I suppose we can still imessage them.

Axeman1020, appreciate all your input thus far, but it really seems off the mark. I am having the same issue as everyone else. When I try to share something via AirDrop, my daughter's name and photo pop up as the name (the kind of device listed is actually correct). It is only the name that is screwed up. We have four devices (an iTouch 5, two iPhone 5's, and an iPad Mini). Yes, all four devices are registered through the same Apple ID. For those of us with kids...this makes by far the most sense. Do you really think we want our kids running around with their own Apple ID and iTunes account access? Not to mention the separate apple ID makes no sense when you consider "find my iPhone" app needs to have all devices registered under the same iCloud account. But all of this is off the mark.

The issue is with AirDrop

This seems like a simple fix to me. Shouldn't we be seeing the DEVICE'S NAME when trying to use the AirDrop feature? Just like when I turn my phone into a hotspot. Those sitting around me see it as "Mike's iPhone" - that is the device name. Why are we not seeing the device name along with the "my contact" info that is assigned to that specific device (showing us their picture if they have one in contacts). That's where this feature is broken. With AirDrop, you can share content with known contacts, or you can share content with anyone running ios 7 and the correct hardware. So if I'm in line at Starbucks and I want to shoot a pic over to some nice old lady using AirDrop, she has ios 7 and we both have iPhone 5's, why is she going to see my daughter's name?? It makes no sense?...my Apple ID or our iCloud account set-up has nothing to do with it. It is my device communicating with another device via bluetooth and a wifi virtual network.

So again, why are we seeing the wrong name listed on all of our ios 7 devices on AirDrop?

Exactly. This happens in photo stream too

My mom has by dads name. And my dad has his correct name.

Then My wife changed her name when she got married to me. But it still has her maiden name on there. No where in our contacts does she have her maiden name.

I can't figure this out...

No...

I just went on her phone. She is logged in with my Apple ID.

All of my information is on there when I log on with it. I don't understand where it gets her first name and her maiden name on airdrop and photo stream. Wouldn't it have my information?

I am having a similar issue with iMessage. We have 7 devices under one ID but unique emails, never had a problem until iOS 7 update. Now if I msg my wife the name changes to my daughters name. Haven't tested airdrop just yet but I'd bet they are related somehow.

Axeman1020, I hear what you're saying. However, it makes sense that people would share Apple IDs... if I buy an App that's $5 and my wife wants it... I'm not going to pay for it again. It's ridiculous. So sharing Apple IDs within families is logical. For Apple to know this and yet have AirDrop only recongnize a device by it's Apple ID is silly. Unfortunately this ridiculousness has been standard op for Apple lately. 😟

That sounds like a Facebook contact thing to me (maiden name). Check your contacts to see if there are multiple contact records for her. If so, you can go into iCloud Contacts and highlight all of them and then click "card" in menu ==> select "merge and link selected cards." Or you could always just turn off the sync between your contacts and Facebook.

Not true. AirDrop verifies via bluetooth but transfers via wifi. It needs both. Try turning one or the other off and it will not work.

How the data travels is really irrelevant. It is how the devices verify each other that you are having trouble with and that is via Apple ID.

Axeman1020, sure you could... but then how would my wife and I see our calendar events or notes or contacts or reminders which are all shared over the same iClound ID. When I make a calendar event, she can see it. When I make a note, she can see it. When I add a contact, she can see it. And vice versa. It's an awesome feature for us that we'd lose if we had different iCloud IDs.

You can create shared reminders and calendars as is without the same iCloud account. Contacts you can not but you will be able to airdrop or message them. Notes I am not sure. I haven't had a need to share notes.

Axeman1020 wrote:

Not true. AirDrop verifies via bluetooth but transfers via wifi. It needs both. Try turning one or the other off and it will not work.

How the data travels is really irrelevant. It is how the devices verify each other that you are having trouble with and that is via Apple ID.

I understand there are a whole lot of kids walking around with jail broken iPhones and there are certainly valid security concerns when you get into the AirDrop wireless file sharing. But look at it this way, we have had home sharing set up through iTunes for as long as I can remember (always on the same apple ID). Right now I have itunes open and I see SIX different devices connected wirelessly ---and they are listed out nicely by their device name. It's not like Apple doesn't know which devices are currently registered on the same Apple ID. I still don't get it? If they are just trying to push their customer base to create more mini consumers in the same household...it begins to make a little bit more sense. But not much.

Why can't you just pair a device via bluetooth and exchange files?

Are there copyright concerns or privacy issues that Apple is trying to avoid...cuz honestly, if they didn't see this being a huge issue for AirDrop with validating a device with its Apple ID (and not the device MAC ID), Apple's stock deserves to tank and their developers deserve to be unemployed for a while. I'm thinking this is just a simple fix that will be addressed in the very first software update package pushed out by Apple in about 9 days.

I' have the same problem and read all the responses through 9/19/13 at 11:30PM when posting this. Several comments.

1) I read some article about needing wifi and bluetooth and at home I needed both but at work today I was able to airdrop with just bluetooth so dont know why at home it was sying i needed both on.

2) I have 2 kids. We have 1 icloud and 1 apple ID. They each have an email account linked to the ID for imessage. Face time and imessage all work fine and show the correct name and phone. When I tried airdrop today with one on my phone, I see the name of kid number 2 on airdrop but it goes to kid number 1s phone. The phone is the correct one but the name in air drop is the wrong kid. In the icloud settings, everything is turned off on both the kids phones except for find my iphone so contacts, etc are not shared or synced. We all have our own contacts. I signed out of icloud and back in on the phone with the name popping up but it did not fix. I powered down the two phones and restarted the two I saw the problem on but it didnt fix. It does sound like a programming glitch or oversight I feel becuase this issue does not exist with imessage or facetime, etc.

The name showing up on air drop is from a phone that I did not get to see what my son selected after the udpate and of course he doesnt remember what he selected but it may be related to the problem. I did the other two phones. There are at least half a dozen things more I can try and will see what happens (e.g. a - sign out of 1 phone and try the other two for each phone; b - turn off icolud on all 3 and back on; c - see if the problems goes away like someone else said it did becuase maybe it takes time for the appleid cross references to update; for reference the name poping up was inadvertanly linked to all three phones on face time at first (likely related to what my son selected after the install); d- unisntall ios7 and reinstall, etc.) Will keep you posted.

I think I found the problem.

Well for my case anyway.

My wife and I both use the same Apple ID and AirDrop showed my name and picture in airdrop.

My Apple ID is also my email address and the way I fixed the problem is I removed my email address from my contact card in the phone book app.

Now it shows my wife's picture and name on my phone and vise versa on her phone.

Also make sure under FaceTime setting only tick the number for that device. That's what I have but not sure that helps or not.

Give it a try and good luck.