Why does my iPhone show "Maybe" in Contacts for my wife's name?

I'm having this same issue. I have an iPhone 16 pro running IOS 18.1.1. It started a few days ago with my partner's personal and work phone numbers. When she messages me its like we're in a group chat with both her phone numbers. I deleted her work phone number off of my phone completely, and even went so far as to block the number and it still sends some messages to her work phone. I've tried all the "fixes" I could find online and nothing works. The old phone number even pops up in my messages instead of her name, until I click on the thread and then it reverts back to her name, but the old phone number is still there somehow. I have messages on my Mac and iPad, and it works fine on there, but my iPhone is screwed. This is a huge issue because now I'm hesitant to text her anything personal since it might go to her work phone number which her IT people have access to.

[Edited by Moderator]

You can disable this feature, if you want, by:

1. Go to Settings --> Mail, Contacts, Calendars
2. Under Contacts > Siri & Search > Fine Contacts in Other Apps, toggle the switch to the OFF position
3. Under Calendar > Siri & Search > Fine Contacts in Other Apps, toggle the switch to the OFF position
4. Under Mail > Siri & Search > Fine Contacts in Other Apps, toggle the switch to the OFF position

Same issue, with messages coming from wife’s iPhone. So annoying. Have not been able to fix yet.

Guys, you may have already solved this problem,

but you can turn off the option for

attached photos in

Settings - Apps - Messages - Apple Intelligence & Siri.

Thank you for read this.

Edit: I tested it a few hours ago and it doesn't work now, sorry.

I have the same issue that started for me when my daughter texts me. It started right after we upgraded phones and iOS.

The problem is Messages bundling into the same thread all messages sent to one contact no matter which of their phone number or email you sent it to. And now apparently it can’t figure out anymore when they message you back from a different number/email than the last from the thread…

My solution is to go to in your contacts for that person, tap info, message, choose one of the phone numbers/emails, send a test message and have them text you back. If it still does it resto that choosing the next number/email until it’s solved.

And maybe to prevent it on your end go to your settings, message app, send and receive, and only send from one of your numbers/addresses.

I don’t use family sharing with the contact it happened with. My guess is that it had to do with sending/receiving messages while iOS 18 was installing ow when the persons main iMessage address (likely phone number) was offline.

We do have family sharing but it’s not a new change. We’ve had family sharing with storage for years. So I think it migh have something to do with the recent iOS update (basically something changed on Apple’s end is my guess)

Guys, you may have already solved this problem,

but you can turn off the options for

attached photos in

Settings - Apps - Messages - Apple Intelligence & Siri.

Thank you for read this.

Edit: I tested it a few hours ago and it doesn't work now, sorry.

Why would you edit my comments and take out the part about why apple would be so careless with messages and how this bug could cost someone their job and ruin their lives? Are you censoring any criticism of apple on this forum?

I have the exact same problem. All my texts to my husband also seem to go to his work phone. When I specifically text his personal line, it goes through but when I check my message history, it looks like I texted his work phone instead. I’ve tried blocking his work number, but it just pops back up. I’ve deleted and blocked his work phone, and it somehow still looks like he’s texting me and receiving texts from me from that number. I’m also iPhone 16 and iOS 18.1.1.

I am so frustrated with this too. I don’t want my texts to go to his work phone especially since he might eventually get a new work number!

What frustrates me is that there’s no way to know which phone iMessage is deciding to send the message to so now I have to be incredible careful with every message because it might go to her work phone. I also have countless contacts in my phone with multiple numbers each so I’m wondering where my messages are going. It’s incredible that threads like this go back months and apple has done nothing to fix such a critical component. They’re more worried about launching useless AI features instead of fixing a key component of their software.

Was this fixed for anyone? I’m now unable to text my husband’s personal number at all. All my texts go to his work phone even though his work phone is stored under a completely different name. I even deleted his work number from my contacts and it still goes to his work phone instead of his personal phone. The only way I’m able to send a text message to his personal phone is if I turn off iMessage. I have no idea what to do

i’ve been facing this issue as well since my wife and i upgraded iphones and switched carriers.

none of the above replies ended up solving my issue, but what has seemed to work so far is turning off imessage altogether and forcing texts to go through between the phones as SMS a few times before reactivating imessage. it then took a bit of coaxing to get the messages to go through as imessage instead of SMS, but once they switched back over everything seems to be working.

i did end up with the prior messages on my ipad splitting when i did this, but deleting the message associated with the email address seems to have cleaned that up.

just an fyi, this error seems tame in that it’s just annoying to have ‘maybe’ in front of a known contact’s name, but in fact it can mean that your text messages aren’t going through at all (i.e., it may be annoying that texts are going to your partner’s work phone, but if they didn’t have that phone they wouldn’t be receiving your messages at all like it was in my case)