Is there a patch/addon that will enable personal names in MSN Messenger? By personal names I mean to be able to establish a different name/nickname for each separate contact. Thanks

Use Messenger Plus!.

To the nick of a contact use the Custom Names Feature

quote:

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Custom Names

    * This feature allows your to set custom names for your contacts.
    * The contact list can display the custom names, which enables the "view by email" option in Messenger, and it can use custom contact names while chatting.
    * This function can be accessed in the Preferences panel, in the Contact list section.

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No, I didn't mean being able to rename each contact in the list. I mean that when I connect to MSN, each of my contacts will see me under a different name. For example, if I have Mary, Joe and Paul in my list, then Mary will see me as "John", Joe will see me as "Andy" and Paul will se me as "Robert" for example. Is that possible?

I'm afraid you can't have multiple nicknames using a single passport account.

Nope, that's impossible. You can't send multiple nicknames through the Messenger protocol, only 1. It would be annoying aswell, since everyone sees you as someone else...

Well, they can see you under a different name, when they set a custom nickname for you. But that's not what you want, huh?

And everyone if forgetting that SPNG has a 'Chat-Only Name' feature. That hints to me that it's possible to have a 'Chat-Only' name that's unique for each contact. Not quite what you want, but along the right lines.

What prompted me to start this thread is that it seems this feature is present in the "Mercury" Messenger:
http://www.mercury.to/index.php?page=Wiki&wikipage=WhatIsMercury
If you read in that link, in the "Extended MSN functions" it says:
"Have a different MSN name in every conversation (Personal name)"

It just won't be quite as easy in Messenger, that's all.