How do I change the way names are sorted?

Under Preferences > Settings, there are three options for your contact list.

The sort order and display order can both be changed between "First, Last", and "Last, First". For sort order, this changes which part of their name will be considered first when sorting them for your contact list, and for display order, this changes what order the names get show in on the contact list.

Here you can also set whether you want to see people's aliases. You are able to change your contacts' aliases, and they are set to their name by default.