I am trying to figure out how I can have a shortcut which (1) presents a list of recipients from which I can select one or more, (2) requests input for the text to be sent and (3) sends the message to the list. I can do this just fine with the List action except that the list must contain the phone numbers of the recipients and I would like it to be the names which may or may not correspond to the names in the Contacts. I am trying to avoid some convoluted logic which takes the selected names and converts each one to a phone number but that may be the only way.
What about putting your contacts into a group (in Contacts). Then in Shortcuts use the Find Contacts action with a Group filter rule to return the list of contacts. You then have a list of contact objects rather than names or numbers. Then use Choose from List to select the contact - it should display their name and image on each entry which helps if you have an edge case of any identically named people on your list.
When you make your selection, you will then have a list of full contact ‘objects’ to work with rather than just names.