I already kad knowledge of that, however, I remember that in other networks, like Microsoft MSN, you could use both things: If you set a name for a contact, you'll see that name. But if you don't, you see the name that contact has set, with auto propagation and update.
Is there no way to emulate this feature with openfire & standard XMPP client? I could even write a plugin to approach it, but I really have no clue of where to start.
Another more "dirty" workaround will be directly altering openfire database replacing the old name by the new one, on all rosters found. But I would like avoiding that 
Regards