CNAM (caller ID name)

CNAM stands for caller ID name — the short text label that shows up next to your number when you call someone, like a business name instead of just digits. People mix it up with cid, but they're two different things: the number is the CID, and the name beside it is the CNAM.

The thing that surprises most people: you can't set CNAM in VICIdial. There's no campaign field for it, and even if there were, it wouldn't matter. The name doesn't travel with your call. Instead, the person you're calling — really their phone company — looks up your number in a national name database and shows whatever it finds there. That lookup is tied to records like lidb, the same system that stores billing info for a number.

So if you want a clean name to show, you change it where the number lives, not in your dialer:

• Ask your carrier to set the CNAM on the number you own.
• It only works on a number you control — usually a did you bought, not a borrowed one.
• Changes can take days to spread, and some carriers don't show CNAM on mobile at all.

Bottom line: CNAM is a property of your number out on the trunk and the phone network, set with your carrier — not a setting you flip inside VICIdial.