IPhone – Display phone numbers instead of contact name in recent calls

To summarize, follow these steps:

1. Close and reopen the Contacts application. Did that work?

   Side Note: Generally contacts will sync whether the app is open or closed, it doesn't matter, but sometimes devices act up. It tends to happen with older devices, especially if running newer versions of iOS (iOS 8).

2. Try switching the Contacts tab under iCloud settings on your iPhone. If that does not work, check if that number is visible in iCloud.com
3. If the phone number is not there, it might be one of two things:
   • Your Mac is not uploading to iCloud.
   • You might have added that contact under the contacts of a different email account setup on your Mac.
4. Check your iCloud settings on your Mac and open the Contacts app, taking note if the contact is under the iCloud account by selecting the iCloud account alone, NOT "All Contacts". You will see different accounts (emails) on the left hand side if you allowed contact syncing for email accounts on the Mac.
   • If so, drag-and-drop the contact to the iCloud tab.
5. To confirm whether your Mac is uploading to the cloud, login to iCloud.com and check the Contacts app. If you don't see the new contact, you know to focus on the Mac to iCloud sync.

I have been having this same problem and as I go through this thread I found that I could answer yes to everything, but the problem persisted.

I ended up opening the Contacts page on my Mac and while the contacts I needed were in "All Contacts" they were not in the "On My Mac" so I highlighted them all under "All Contacts" and did a drag and drop into "On My Mac" it fixed almost all my problems.

The ones that it didn't fix I found out that the formatting on the phone number themselves were not correct. For example the one on Mac messenger was 1(234)567-8900 while the contact card did not have a 1... so, (234)567-8900. Changing those two things fixed everything.