IOS – Changed phone number to new contact but messages still shows old contact

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My phone is an iPhone on iOS 12.1. I had a second phone that was not an iPhone and in my personal contact card on my main phone, I had the second phone number added as an additional entry for mobile number. So my contact card "MyName" had my main mobile number and a second number in it. When I would loan my second phone to my daughter, it would appear as though I was texting myself but it was fine for the time.

Now I've moved the SIM card from the temp phone and put it into an older iPhone and now that phone and number are officially my daughter's phone. I removed the second phone number from my contact card and created a new contact card "Daughter" with that phone number on it.

The problem is that when I text to "Daughter", as soon as the message finishes sending, it switches to show that it is "MyName" instead of "Daughter" and it's back to looking like I'm texting with myself. I've confirmed that my daughter's phone number doesn't show up in my contact card and that my number doesn't show up in hers. And I've confirmed that on the phone contacts as well as in iCloud.com just to be sure nothing is hanging around there. I've tried doing this iMessage off and on and I get the same result.

My daughter's phone doesn't have any confusion – it shows "MyName" when received from me. It's only my phone that is confused showing "MyName" when coming from my daughter's phone. When I tap on the name (and then the "i" and then the arrow next to the name) for a message received from my daughter, it shows my whole contact card and does not include the her phone number in that list. Clearly something is cached somewhere but I can't figure out where that would be to clear it out. Any suggestions short of clearing out my phone and starting over?

Additional Info: I just tried calling from my daughter's phone and my phone showed my daughter's contact info on the incoming call. I also tried calling from my phone to my daughter's phone and it showed her info on the outgoing call. So the phone app has the right contact info but the Messages app is where the problem is.

Best Answer

Months later, with no better answers in sight, I decided to try deleting my own contact card (where "Daughter"'s number had been used as mine at one point but had since been removed). I'd been trying to be more surgical about the problem and wanted to avoid this big hammer. It solved the problem.

The detailed steps I took are below. Some of the steps are probably unnecessary but I really didn't want to take a chance. And you could probably do it fine without needing MacOS Contacts connected through iCloud but I found it made it easier to reimport and know I got exactly my contact info back the way it was (and I don't know how I would have done that just within iOS).

  1. Started with iMessage off on the phone but iCloud active for Contacts on both phone and MacOS
  2. In linked Contacts on MacOS, exported my own card - the one with the problem - to the Desktop as a vcf file
  3. On the phone, deleted my own contact; verified it went away from my MacOS contacts through iCloud sync
  4. On the phone sent message to Daughter; confirmed it stayed saying "Daughter"
  5. On MacOS, imported my vcf file into Contacts; confirmed the card reappeared on the phone through iCloud sync
  6. On the phone sent message to Daughter; confirmed it stayed saying "Daughter"
  7. On MacOS, used the Card -> Make This My Card; confirmed that the silhouette showed up on my card on the phone through iCloud sync (discovered you have to not have your own contact open on the phone for this to sync)
  8. On the phone sent message to Daughter; confirmed it stayed saying "Daughter"
  9. Turned on iMessage on the phone and accepted connection on MacOS for the phone number
  10. On the phone sent message to Daughter; confirmed it stayed saying "Daughter"
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