Google Hangouts SMS merging issues

[greycobalt]

Hi all. I was really excited when we could finally merge the contact threads in Hangouts, but, since they started merging, the contact names are getting overwritten with the Google+ names. For instance, I have my mother in there as "Mom", but her Google+ profile has her full name. Whenever I get a text now, it's from her full name, and not "Mom". If I unmerge the threads, she becomes "Mom" again, but if not, it's stuck on a full name. Is there any way to merge them and keep her name as the one I've selected? Thanks in advance!

I'm on a Galaxy Note 3 running Android 4.3.