Want to Use Your Friends’ Nicknames in iOS? Here’s How

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If you have a friend whom you refer to only by his or her nickname, it can be annoying to feel like you should use that person’s proper first name when adding him to Contacts. Worse, then he shows up in Messages with a name you don’t recognize as easily. Here’s how to convince iOS to use your friend’s nickname instead. Open that person’s card in Contacts, tap Edit, scroll to the bottom, tap Add Field, and tap Nickname. That puts a Nickname field at the top, under the proper name, for you to fill in. To get iOS to use it, go to Settings > Contacts > Short Name and enable Prefer Nicknames. From then on, you can enter your friend’s nickname instead of his or her proper name in apps like Messages and Mail, and iOS will also display it instead of the full name everywhere.