Your phone might be listening in the background (e.g. Hey Siri needs this to work). Even with the option off (as you said), it might still be processing words o

Your phone might be listening in the background (e.g. Hey Siri needs this to work). Even with the option off (as you said), it might still be processing words on-device for better suggestions. Another non-tinfoil explanation would be cross matching a lot of data from here and there (for example, if you had some event in calender with their names or their name was in some message/text even if you haven't called them for years) and might got its way in there too. There is probably much more going on that I don't even know, too. The point is: while it could be phone listening, it can very well be a result of some huge data processing on your device without listening too. edit: oh, having read the other comments, coincidence/selective bias is even more likely than anything I've written.