W204 Bluetooth Reversing First name and Last name

[DonVitto]

As many of us will know the Mercedes phonebook puts contact names as last name and then first name, i.e:

Smith, John

I'm not sure if newer models have the option to reverse the names, but certainly my W204 doesn't. Looking around the only suggestion has been to switch the names around in your phone before transmitting the contacts. Not only is this tedious, but you'd then have to repeat the process all over to get them the correct way around in your phone again.

I have a slightly easier solution to reverse the names, and it also means you don't need to transmit your contacts one at a time.

Please note, this guide is written based on Android. I'm not sure if something similar can be achieved with the iPhone (shudders):

1) Export all of your contacts as a VCF file. In Android you do this by opening the "Contacts" app and select Import/Export from the menu.

2) Locate the exported file and transfer it to your computer via a USB cable.

3) People say you need Outlook to edit the VCF file. You don't. Open a text editor (such as Notepad) and go to File > Open. Then type *.vcf into the filename box, and finally browse to where you VCF file is and open it.

4) The contents of the file will look something like this (yours might contain additional information such as email addresses, information for contact pictures, etc; you can ignore all of this and just edit the names):

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Smith;John;;;
FN:John Smith
TEL;CELL;PREF:+447722088299
END:VCARD
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Taylor;Adam;;;
FN:Adam Taylor
TEL;CELL;PREF:+447722088290
END:VCARD

I didn't even want a comma between first name and last name in the car's phonebook so I edited my VCF file to look like this:

BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:;John Smith;;;
FN:John Smith
TEL;CELL;PREF:+447722088299
END:VCARD
BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:;Adam Taylor;;;
FN:Adam Taylor
TEL;CELL;PREF:+447722088290
END:VCARD

5) Save the file after editing it, and then transfer it back to your phone via USB

6) Find the file on your phone and select to "Share" it. Then share it via Bluetooth. Your car will be able to import all contacts from the file in one go, and hey presto your names will be like "John Smith" instead of "Smith, John"

 

[Ted]

Changing the contact's first name to 'john smith' and deleting the surname worked for me.

 

[DonVitto]

Changing the contact's first name to 'john smith' and deleting the surname worked for me.

Indeed, however if you have hundreds of contacts in your phone this can be a tedious process to do via the phone. The above solution achieves the same thing but via a computer where cutting and pasting is much quicker.

Also a lot of people think you have to transfer contacts one at a time, but again with the above you can send them all at once.