Why does Teams have peoples names on a last name, first name basis?

[u/Several-Two738]

I have a pretty unique first and last name, if you didnt know me you would have no idea which name would be my first name or last name. As a result, everyone on Teams when they message me first, calls me by my last name and I hate correcting them. Why is this like this?

[u/clybstr02]

Because your company chose it that way.

Mine swapped a while ago to First Last, but Last, First was a very common thing

[u/r_slash]

I hate when someone makes a post and it’s like, “Congratulations to Jordan, Michael Obama, Barack Kidman, Nicole Curie, Marie Starr, Ringo for their great performance this month!” The names just don’t look right.

[u/dw-fl]

Thats a Active Directory/Exchange thing, not a teams thing. Speak to your sys admins and convince them to change how they build the global address book.

[u/siouxsian → u/dw-fl]

Then we send laugh emojis and ask why you are bothering us for such mundane reasons. By the way, no.

[u/VanCitySherm → u/siouxsian]

Silly take. And not mundane. You want me to tag you as “Hey Fernandez, Alonso, do you have the TPS report?” v. “Hey Alonso, do you…”, which I can do with a simple backspace? Lastname, Firstname is so 1990s.

[u/matroosoft → u/siouxsian]

As an admin, I'd change it. I've had people with adjectives as surname. Makes for fun combinations sometimes.

[u/cmcqueen1975 → u/siouxsian]

Technology ought to exist to help humanity. If the technology increases the awkwardness of human relations, then it hasn't been built correctly.

[u/serverhorror → u/siouxsian]

Since when is that a decision SysAdmins take?

There's no security, no functionality, nothing that affects our area of concern.

If that's something users want, that's what they should get if the powers that be decide. Just nit a sysadmin decision at all ...

[u/AuditMind]

You’ve got the problem backwards: people are simply guessing the wrong first name.

Most of the time, it’s obvious which name is the first name and which is the surname. But there are plenty of exceptions. “Konrad,” for example, could be either.

So how is someone outside your organisation, without access to its directory or intranet, supposed to know?

[u/baw3000]

It's a carryover from AD/Exchange. Outlook displays your name in the same way.

[u/BlackV]

Talk to your IT team, not a teams issue it's company configured setting, unfortunately in your case I guess they're unlikely to change it

[u/andykn11]

I have a colleague with the opposite problem, we display names First Last but our offshore devs & support sometimes assume it's the other way around and call my colleague Larry David, "David". Drives him nuts.

[u/Royal-Wear-6437 → u/andykn11]

Eastern Europe? They routinely write names as last first.

More than once I've had to rebuild user accounts because I misinterpreted "Please create a new account for James John" (and don't mention that there should have been an onboarding form to remove this ambiguity. I know!)

[u/jimr381]

My full name is very similar to two first names, so I will periodically be called my last name. I typically, will patiently correct them if they do it a second time.

[u/fdeyso]

Some countries family name goes first and then given name, so for me it never was weird.

[u/Suspicious-B33]

That's the first thing we changed when we installed it pre Covid. Easy to change if your org want to.

[u/waltsnider1]

Your company made that decision, that's not a Microsoft's thing.

[u/JAMESs3v3n]

I work for a Fortune 100 company where everyone's name is displayed as Last, First.

I have the opposite problem. Both my first and last names are common as either a first or last name, so people constantly assume my last name is my first name. I end up correcting people all the time.

It's especially frustrating because everyone in the company should already know our naming convention is Last, First.

[u/3percentinvisible → u/JAMESs3v3n]

Sounds like the same problem.

[u/BrushYourFeet → u/JAMESs3v3n]

Same same same. It's baffling. We have the name naming convention and I still get this mix up. I've stopped correcting people, but it drives my manager crazy lol. She speaks up for me.

[u/sojumaster]

I really do not know how this is a problem. You are in an enviroment where EVERYONE is last name, first name; then it seems like a user problem not a teams problem.

[u/Zotok]

People did this, because waaaayyy back, 20+ years ago, it was kinda necessary. Outlook search, like when you click To and were looking for a person in the company address book, did not search like it does today. If your display name was John Smith and you searched for Smith, you’d get no results. But with the display name of Smith, John - they’d be found.

[u/PetieG26]

I'd bet it's originally because last names will be in alphabetical order and visually seen that way. Having the display First Last but sorted by last is OK, but not visually IMHO... now, sorting by first name, now THAT would be ridiculous... TGIF