Mac mail shows my legal name in the To/From fields but I want my nickname

I have a nickname I use and I have it in all my accounts (Gmail, iCloud, Apple ID, etc....) But, in my Mac Mail, I see my legal name in the To/From fields. My friends tell me they don't see it, but it bugs me because I don't like my legal name. I'm guessing it is somehow linked to my credit card? Can anyone tell me how to get rid of it and replace it with my nickname? Thanks, V

Well I guess it may be dependent on what name you set your Mac up under.

You might go into Mail > Preferences > Accounts and set your name as you wish under Account Information > Full Nmae and change it.

In addition to Harry's excellent advice, you may need to go into System Preferences > Users & Groups. Your Admin Name will be shown on the left and clicking on it will show your Full Name on the right. It's possible you might need to change this to your "nickname" for which purpose you will need to click on the padlock (bottom left) and provide your admin PW.

Why I mention this, is that a previous member who wanted a different name to show up in their Mail found that they needed to change the admin name as well as altering things in Mail Preferences as Harry said. This necessity seems to vary between OSs.

Ian

Thanks, but that wasn't the problem

Hi,

After trying what you both suggested (thanks, by the way), plus a few other 'fixes' from web discussions, I figured out that it was my original Facebook IM that was causing the issue. Yosemite pulls that info onto Contact cards. I had to go into FB and change the IM name there to my preferred name. That fixed the contact card as well as what shows up in my TO/FROM fields in my Mac Mail.

Incidentally, the people I emailed with never saw the legal name. They saw the preferred name. However, I didn't want to see the legal name on my end. Changing it in FB fixed it---although FB recommends that the IM name SHOULD be one's real name.

V