How to Fix Contact Names Not Showing, Appearing as Numbers in iOS

Iphone Showing Phone Number Instead Of Contact Name

The issue of contacts showing as phone numbers only has been creating havoc on iOS for a long time now. When this issue happens, it appears that all of your contacts have been deleted with the contact names not visible in any phone call logs or messages, with phone numbers in place of the contact names. The issue is usually due to a simple error and can be fixed easily. Let’s take a look at how to fix the contact names not showing and appearing as numbers in iOS.

1. Reboot Your iPhone

The simplest solution to such an issue is to restart your iPhone. This usually fixes the missing contacts’ names. Do note that rebooting helps to fix other issues too, such as Apple Pay problems.

To reboot your phone, you can either power off and then power on as you would usually do or do a hard reboot.

To hard reboot or force restart your iPhone, follow these steps:

Force Restart All iPhones without Home Buttons (iPhone X+)

1. Press and release the Volume Up button.

2. Press and release the Volume Down button.

3. Press and hold the Power button.

4. Keep holding the Power/Sleep button until you see the Apple logo appear on the screen. This shows that your iPhone has successfully restarted.

Force Restart All iPhones with a Home Button

Press and hold the Power and Home buttons simultaneously until you see the Apple logo on the screen. This will let you know that your device has restarted.

Once your iPhone has successfully restarted, relaunch the Phone and Messages apps, and you should see the contact information restored and visible as normal.

2. Check iCloud Contacts Settings

Another possible reason for the contact names not appearing on your Phone and Messages apps is that iCloud Contacts in the iOS Settings is not enabled. This can happen if you recently enabled iCloud Contacts, then disabled it later.

To fix it, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Settings app on your iPhone.

2. Tap on your iCloud ID on the top of the screen followed by tapping on iCloud.

3. Look under the Apps Using iCloud section. Make sure that “Contacts” is toggled to ON. If it is already on, turn it off and enable it again.

We recommend keeping iCloud Contacts on because of its ease of use and the fact that you can quickly and easily restore contacts to your device in case they get erased accidentally or you lose your phone.

3. Check Duplicate Contact Number

If the issue is happening with only a few contacts, you should check whether the number has been saved twice. Basically, your phone doesn’t know which contact name to display, so it doesn’t show any. To fix this, simply type the phone number in the search bar of the Contacts app and see if it’s showing twice. Delete one of the contacts.

4. Check Contacts App Settings

Often, we overlook the simplest things. That’s exactly what could have happened for the contact numbers not showing in iOS issue.

Open the Apple Contacts app and tap on the Groups option at the top. Make sure you tap on the “Show all contacts” option or manually select all the available groups. Hit the Done button.

5. Turn Off Dial Assist

Dial Assist could also be the reason behind iOS showing phone numbers instead of the contact name. To fix it, you will have to disable Dial Assist. To do so, open Settings and tap on Phone. Turn off the toggle next to Dial Assist.

6. Change Region

Sometimes your iPhone doesn’t recognize the selected region, and that’s why it faces issues while displaying contact names. You will need to change the region to something different to fix the issue.

Follow these steps:

1. Open Settings on your iPhone.

2. Go to “General -> Language & Region.”

3. Tap on Region and change it to a different one.

4. Restart your iPhone, then change the region back to the original one.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why have my contact names disappeared?

Your contact list may just have been hidden accidentally. Try methods 2 and 4 to fix the issue.

2. Why are my incoming calls not displaying on my iPhone?

You might have turned off notifications for the Phone app. To fix it, go to “Settings -> Phone -> Notifications.” Enable the toggle next to Allow notifications.

3. How to Recover Deleted Contacts

You can easily recover accidentally contacts on your iPhone with the help of iCloud. Open iCloud.com and sign in with your Apple ID. Click on “Account Settings,” then on “Restore contacts” at the bottom.

That’s how you can easily fix the issues of iOS not showing contact names for incoming calls and messages. Let us know in the comments section below if you have any other fixes for this issue.

Meanwhile, if you own both an Android phone and iPhone, find out how to sync iOS and Android contacts. You may also be interested in learning how to make private calls from a phone.

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