How to change default display name in Azure?

Matthew Taylor 1 Reputation point
2022-11-02T17:01:52.29+00:00

We're syncing everything to Azure from our on-prem Active Directory, using the Azure AD Connect utility. One of the attributes we use and sync is msDS-PhoneticFirstName, which is a person's preferred first name. For example, if you're givenName is Anthony, but you want everything to display "Tony", then that would be set in the msDS-PhoneticFirstName attribute.

While we're able to set up Azure SSO integrations and specify this attribute/claim while setting up Enterprise Apps, I can't figure out how we can change a person's default display name to their preferred first name, i.e. Tony in this case, within Azure and Office 365.

Could anyone provide any help with this?

Thanks in advance.

Microsoft Entra ID
Microsoft Entra ID
A Microsoft Entra identity service that provides identity management and access control capabilities. Replaces Azure Active Directory.
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  1. Matteo Bruschi 1 Reputation point
    2022-11-02T17:06:08.113+00:00

    Could you try to edit the display name attribute named 'displayName' ?
    You are using msDS-PhoneticFirstNam only for anchor sync so if you want to change name you must edit the displayname attribute

  2. Amit Singh 4,846 Reputation points
    2022-11-03T10:18:44.617+00:00

    Yes, when a user account is synced from On-Premise AD to Azure AD, the changes made to the account in On-Premise AD are automatically synced to Azure AD at the next sync cycle after the changes are made.

    The sync cycle runs every 30 minutes by default and can be customized per your requirement. You can check the current sync cycle interval by running the Get-AdSyncScheduler cmdlet on the AD Connect server:
    To manually trigger the sync cycle, you can use the below cmdlet so that you don't have to wait for the configured interval to sync the changes. 

    Start-ADSyncSyncCycle -PolicyType Delta

    If you change the display name in the On-Premise AD, it will automatically get updated in Azure AD after the sync cycle runs automatically or with a manual trigger.