The embodiment of the invention discloses a search method for contact names. The method comprises following steps of receiving a touch operation specific to a target letter set, wherein the alphabet is divided into at least two letter sets in advance, the target letter set is any one of the at least two letter sets; searching the contact names pre-stored in a total contact name list, wherein the first Pinyin letters of the first Chinese characters of the contact names are the letters in the target letter set, thus generating a first contact name list; ranking the first contact name list according to a preset ranking mode; displaying the ranked first contact name list; and displaying the first Pinyin letters of the first Chinese characters of the contact names in the first contact name list. The embodiment of the invention also discloses a search device for the contact names and a terminal. Through adoption of the method, the device and the terminal, fuzzy search is realized, and the operation is simplified.