Train Ticket Name Mix Up from Zurich to Florence

Zurich to Milan EC is not reservation required in the Swiss section, so sit in your reserved seats so as the 2 groups are sitting together as they like. The new crew may check tickets again after you cross into Italy, or maybe not. I'd sort that out at that time. On the Freccia connection, maybe sit as assigned until the tickets are checked, then switch after that. It probably will not be an issue if you are not sitting in a seat that someone else has reserved. Most of the Freccia trains between Milan and Florence will only stop once in Bologna.

Note that if you're seated around a table, the seat numbers may not be exactly consecutive.

All the conductors wants to know is that everyone has a ticket. The seat assignment is not checked and is only a problem if you are seating in a seat assigned to someone else or they are in your seat. So you can change seats, etc., as long as everyone agrees.

The seats available for the outbound trip may have been all that was available at the time you booked. Hopefully you're at least all seated in the same coach. If there are open seats that allow you to sit together, you can certainly do that. However you'll have to be prepared to move to your assigned seat if the reservation holder for the open seat shows up.

I've found that many people are quite flexible, and I've agree to switch seats on a number of occasions to allow a couple to sit together. That's one of the realities of being a solo traveller.

Thank you everyone for the quick responses! I'd like to clarify my situation.

I guess my actual and only question is do the conductors check your ID to make sure the names match?

We don't mind not sitting with our group of 5, but right now it's split 2 and 2 and 1. We are all on different coaches in those groups, which is fine, but they split us as such (using letters instead of names)... instead of A sitting with B, and C sitting with D, it's A/C, D/E/ B. All I want to know is if I can sit with my wife and my friend switch with me to sit with his wife. So it just comes down to if the conductors check ID to see if the names match.

Thanks again!

Are these print-at-home tickets? Are there 5 separate printed tickets for each leg with traveler names on each one?
If so, i believe they will check ID. Otherwise, people could buy one ticket and print 5 copies for their group.
You can look to changing the Zurich-Milan seat reservations at Zurich Hbf. Probably will not have time at Milano Centrale.

The last time I bought Trenitalia print-at-home tickets (its been a few years), it only had my name as purchaser and showed 2 people traveling. So that was not a problem.

They are print-at-home tickets. The tickets are separated into 3 different tickets (2 people, 1 person and 2 people grouped). The names of each passenger are printed on the tickets with the seat info.

As I posted above, from our experience, we have never had the name checked against an id. The conductor just uses his hand held device to shoot the little square on each ticket or if the ticket is for a pair then one ticket. On a couple occasions have been asked for the credit card used to purchase the ticket but I think that was in Germany. But I would have the credit card used for purchase with you. I think you are fine. It is one conductor and they have a lot of people to check so not wasting time with ids as long as the ticket is valid.