I never update numbers. I realize when I see things like Danielle (Brothers name's gf).
He married her in 2019 and they have 2 kids now. Pretty safe to say I could have updated it. Just about every woman I know who got married and changed their last name, I never updated. I never delete numbers either, I don't actively talk to the 890 contacts in my phone, I may talk to 4. They just don't take up enough room to bother and who knows, maybe I go back to another town 10 years from now and call a random guy I remember. If we met up at bar it'd be like we had been hanging out the week before anyways.
I finally put my sister in law in my phone with our now shared last name just today, since she texted me on my first phone that didn't just use google's backup on all my contacts and I had to look the number on my old phone and add her to this one.
My girlfriend saved me as "DO NOT PICK UP [my name] [my birthday] [my field of study]"
The DO NOT PICK UP part is from a time when I didn't have a flatrate for calls and she had... but that was like 5 years ago.
I have two friends who have been a couple for 2 years and stiil both had each other's contacts as "name Japanese" because they met in a Japanese class.
it's "bad" to have your spouse's contact name as their full name rather than "wife", it's the same thing as having your parent call you by your full name
Or it's security conscious. You know who your wife, mom, dad, siblings etc. all are but if they're saved in your phone that way and someone gets access to your contacts it's easier to, potentially, phish them because you can manipulate the relationship.
Otherwise they're just a bunch of names that don't mean much to anyone but you or people that know you.
It seems like the real difference might be how many people are on your contact list. When I only had a handful of friends and family I would also be informal. However at one point I synched a company directory and since then have been much more complete with my contact data so they are easier to find
Fyi, if you're bad with names, I would HIGHLY recommend adding photos to your contacts, as you add them.
It helps hugely with putting names to faces. It also helps differentiate between people. E.g. When you have 5 marks in your phone, but can't remember the surname. Lastly, it helps when you are describing someone to someone else. Being able to easily pull up a photo of them simplifies things.
A relatively crappier version of this is to add them middle names. Brassica Walmart Kale might look weird if they see it, but it will help you remember that you know Brassica Kale from Walmart. For older compatibility reasons, I used to store helpful middle names starting with a period, so it's easier to search for them (so Brassica .Walmart Kale). Addig photos is a great idea, I don't do it often enough (as long as they let you take a photo).
Should have at least a middle initial, if not full middle name. Never know, might meet another Jennifer Wortman one day and it would probably be best to have some way of differentiating between the two. So you don't accidentally schedule a sex appointment with the other one and end up in the awkward position of either needing to cheat on your wife or break an appointment with 0 notice.
I see the humor in this, but I am also exactly the kind of nerd that has correct data fields for everybody from my wife to my grandma and nice and nephews. In a text conversation it’s usually just profile picture with first name under it.
I suspect I’m not the only one, considering the audience.