How to add "Middle Name, Suffix, etc" to the Contact's Name field

Question

Goal: Within a contact, the name field is concatenated in the user view and I would like to add custom fields to this concatenation. Currently, appears this is not possible, though possible I am missing something.

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Background: Within Salesforce it appears that the name field is a set of three fields: Prefix, First, Last; documentation say it's just the First, Last - though at least my instance appears to be the Prefix, First, Last.

Also, it appears that this summer, that Salesforce will be introducing the new default fields to make this: Prefix, First, Middle, Last, Suffix.

"I'm pleased to announce that we will be offering a sneak peek of Middle Name and Suffix on Leads, Contacts, Person Accounts and Users in our upcoming Summer release. More details to follow on how you can get access to this functionality for your organization." Blake Markham - Salesforce, Product Manager

Answer 1

You won't be able to change the formula that "Builds" the standard name field.

You can however create a new custom field with a formula that concatenates the component fields, e.g.:

I used this formula to build the "name examp" at the top of the previous screenshot using the components of the standard name field plus my middle name field (no doubt someone could write a more elegant formula):

text(Salutation) &" "& FirstName &" "& middlename__c &" "& LastName

Of note - you have to use "text" on the Salutation as it's a picklist value.

Answer 2

As per previous comments - I would create custom fields for the "middle" and "suffix".

Then create a custom field that concatenates the respective fields.

As far as I'm aware you can't remove the default "Name" field from a page layout(?) so you would end up with both the standard name field and your custom one.