how can someone use another persons nameoriginal name in hangouts

[Android Central Question]

original name in hangouts was joe blow but somehow sometimes joe blow remains and other times windy city shows up as the contact name. even if you select joe blow it comes up as windy city

 

[Rukbat]

Names can't be copyrighted. Names can't be trademarked unless your birth certificate has that name. (If your name really were Windy City, you could trademark it as a business name if no one else had.)

But names used in something like Hangouts? I have 6 Google accounts (for different purposes) and I can use them all in Hangouts. I can also use your real name, unless I was trying to defraud someone (fraud is illegal no matter how you do it) or trying to deliberately annoy you (if you had evidence of that, Google would probably close the account - you can't use Google things to annoy, defraud, stalk, etc.)

But anyone can change name on Hangouts - to anything - as long as it doesn't run afoul of anything like the above. (Or be blatantly obscene, or racist or sexist or ... you get the idea.).