vCard Name Fields: How N and FN Work (With Examples)
Every contact file carries your name twice, once as you typed it and once split into parts. Here is how the two fields differ and what Clear vCard writes for five test names.
Short answer: A vCard holds your name in two fields. FN is the formatted name, shown as one piece of text. N is the structured name, split by semicolons into family name, given name, additional names, prefixes and suffixes. Clear vCard keeps what you type in FN and works out N from it, so a contact app can sort by family name.
What the Standards Say
The vCard format has two versions in use. Clear vCard exports version 3.0 (RFC 2426). Version 4.0 (RFC 6350) defines the name fields the same way. Both give N as a list in a fixed order, separated by semicolons: family name, given name, additional names, honorific prefixes, honorific suffixes. The example in both documents is N:Public;John;Quinlan;Mr.;Esq.
FN is a single text value, the name as it should be displayed. In RFC 6350 a vCard must include FN, and N is optional. In RFC 2426 a vCard must include FN and N. That is why a file written for version 3.0 should always carry both.
Why There Are Two Fields
FN is for showing a name. N is for sorting and matching it. A contacts app that lists people by family name cannot guess where the family name begins in “Jan van der Berg”, so it reads it from N. If N is missing or wrong, a contact can end up under the wrong letter even though the display name looks right.
How Clear vCard Fills N
You type one name in one box. Clear vCard keeps it as FN, with repeated spaces collapsed, and builds N like this:
- If the name has a comma, as in “Last, First”, the part before the comma is the family name.
- Otherwise the last word is the family name and the first word is the given name. Any words in between are additional names.
- A single word is treated as a given name.
- An empty name is saved as “Contact”.
We ran five names through the tool and read the resulting file:
| Name typed | N written to the file |
|---|---|
| Žana Zqxmark Ćirić | Ćirić;Žana;Zqxmark;; |
| Jan van der Berg | Berg;Jan;van der;; |
| Ćirić, Žana | Ćirić;Žana;;; |
| Madonna | ;Madonna;;; |
| (empty) | FN is “Contact” |
Where a Simple Rule Gets It Wrong
The rule is a guess from word order, and it has limits. “Jan van der Berg” is stored with the family name “Berg” and “van der” as an additional name, but many people treat “van der Berg” as the family name. Names where the family name comes first, or has two words, can also be split in a way the person would not choose. If the sort order matters for a contact, type the name as “Family, Given” with a comma, which tells the tool where the family name ends.
Long Lines and Special Characters
Accented letters such as Ć or Ž are written as UTF-8 and need more than one byte each. The standards ask for lines to be folded at 75 characters in version 3.0 and 75 octets in version 4.0, by starting the next line with a space after a line break. Clear vCard folds at 75 octets and never splits a character across two lines, so long names in any alphabet stay intact. Every line ends with CRLF, as the format requires.
For what the file carries compared with a QR code, see vCard QR code or .vcf file, and for opening the result on a phone or in Outlook, how to import a .vcf file.
A vCard name is two things at once: the text people see and the parts a contacts app sorts by. Clear vCard fills both from one box, and a comma in the name is the simplest way to be sure the family name lands in the right place.
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