I don't see my contact names on my ipad, just their phone numbers

Same issue. I have signed into my google account. Have the same apple ids but my contacts show up as phone #s. Have tried everything.

I have reset my new iPad 3x already and the same issue results, unable to slide the Contacts button on and therefore absolutely no contacts appear at all. Even tried manual setup to no avail as well as loading directly from iCloud. I checked all the settings across devices to ensure they are the same. Need help.

Go into Settings > Contacts and there select an account that you want to use to manage your contacts. Make sure that when you select that account, you see that “Contacts” is turned on to sync those. If there are other things you want to sync as well, make sure they are turned on too. Make sure that you have all the accounts on your iPad that you also have on your MacBook and your iPhone as a different account other than your AppleID could be what has all your contacts. For instance, my contacts all sync from Google, I don’t see the contacts on a new device until I sign that device into my Google account and make sure that the Google account is set to sync all that information.

*** SOLVED (for me)***

A reddit post suggested to change the Region from my home region to a random region like United Kingdom and then back to my home region. This is located under the "Language & Region" menu inside of "Settings"

I noticed a pattern that any contacts that were missing the preceding 3-digit area code for the phone number were not being recognized by their Contact name. Switching the Region settings to United Kingdom and then back to my home Region was enough to make the iPad wake up and recognize all my Contact names in the Messages app.

I hope this works for anyone who finds this thread.

Apple - please fix this annoying bug. There are tons of threads on the internet about this problem with a lot of bad answers from people that don't actually solve this issue.

I had this same problem for a while where contacts didn't have names on my ipad. i just figured out that I needed to toggle on Contacts under Apple ID.

1. Go to "Settings"
2. Tap on "Apple ID"
3. Tap on " Show All" under 'Apps Using iCloud'
4. Toggle the button next to Contacts
5. Close your iMessage App and relaunch

This frustrating event happened to me also! I tried all of the tricks mentioned. This one worked: Sign out of Apple on all devices. Then sign back in. Check settings in the device that does have your contacts with names and phone numbers (mine was my iphone). Make sure you have icloud and that sync devices is on. Then log into apple on the other device. You'll need to add icloud again in settings. Voila! I hope it works!

Thank you thank you thank you! It worked.

Although this is very likely to be true - this is not a practical solution. It would take an insane amount of time to re-save hundreds of contacts manually to your iCloud account. This 100% needs to be fixed. My iPad mini was totally fine until I updated to iPad OS 17.3.1. Now in the Messages app, my saved Google contacts will not show the contact name. Also, if I try to share anything from other apps (photos, documents, etc.) it does not show my contacts as recipient options like it did before the update.

Dear Apple - fix it.

This was the only suggestion of the many that worked for me. It was set to “global” and when I switched to US it worked. Thanks for the note

Despite what Apple will tell you this issue is due to having Google or other accounts on your Apple devices causing contacts to be saved to the wrong account.

The ONLY guaranteed way to ensure contact names sync across your Apple devices is to remove all the non-Apple accounts from iCloud. Remove Gmail, Outlook, etc.

Once complete, you will then have to go onto your iPhone or iPad and create a new contact (in iCloud) for each message showing only a number. It shouldn’t be this hard but that’s the only way to ensure contact name’s sync across Apple devices. Think of it as Apple’s way of forcing you onto their Cloud.

Found a fix for myself, incase you havent, make sure that you have your accounts all signed in on every device, this means gmail contacts, outlook, or any other contacts must be signed in on all devices. Once i added my gmail account on my ipad, half of my accounts had names which were on my phone as well :) hopefully this helps 1 person <3

I have tried everything in this thread and on the internet in general. I still can't get my contacts to sync from my iPhone to my iPad. WTF! Apple is starting to feel a lot like Windows. Its sad!

Thanks for this (and others who added this information). This is what worked for me. Had to go to Settings -> Contacts -> Accounts, and add my gmail account. Just added gmail contacts. All name immediately showed up.

I have had this problem several times. What I just did that seem to work was after everything is set up. I went back into my account and turned off messages in iCloud. (turned off the toggle that says use on this iPad). And then once I turned it back on again all the contacts were there.