{"id":9253,"date":"2025-09-05T14:06:26","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:06:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tcn.tidbits.com\/?p=11165"},"modified":"2026-01-30T14:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T18:48:20","slug":"how-to-display-contacts-with-last-names-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/how-to-display-contacts-with-last-names-first\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Display Contacts with Last Names First"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most people prefer Apple\u2019s default of <i>sorting<\/i> contacts by last name, so \u201cAndy Anderson\u201d appears near the start of the list and \u201cLiliana Velasco\u201d toward the end. But some would also prefer to <i>display<\/i> contacts with their last name first, such as \u201cAnderson, Andy,\u201d and \u201cVelasco, Liliana.\u201d That\u2019s not the default, but if it\u2019s what you want, here\u2019s how to accomplish it. On the iPhone and iPad, go to <b>Settings &gt; Apps &gt; Contacts &gt; Display Order<\/b> and select Last, First. On the Mac, open <b>Contacts &gt; Settings &gt; General<\/b> and from the Show First Name controls, select Following Last Name.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-11157\" src=\"https:\/\/macworks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/how-to-display-contacts-with-last-names-first-1.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1024px, 100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/macworks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/how-to-display-contacts-with-last-names-first-2.jpg 980w, https:\/\/macworks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/how-to-display-contacts-with-last-names-first-3.jpg 480w\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"547\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Featured image by Adam Engst)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most people prefer Apple\u2019s default of sorting contacts by last name, so \u201cAndy Anderson\u201d appears near the start of the list and \u201cLiliana Velasco\u201d toward the end. But some would also prefer to display contacts with their last name first, such as \u201cAnderson, Andy,\u201d and \u201cVelasco, Liliana.\u201d That\u2019s not the default, but if it\u2019s what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,69,106,112,185],"tags":[721,3397,3398,3396,95],"class_list":["post-9253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-apple","category-apple-consulting-ct","category-apple-support-ct","category-mac-support-ct","category-mactech","tag-apple-support-ct","tag-apple-technical-support-connecticut","tag-mac-help-near-me","tag-mac-support-connecticut","tag-mac-support-ct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9253"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9270,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9253\/revisions\/9270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}