This has been reported in bugzilla (and "moved" to brainstorm). See for example https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6444 and https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=7195. I very much doubt this will be changed for Maemo now.

Looking at the MeeGo feature list for the Handset Contacts app at http://bugs.meego.com/buglist.cgi?cl...set%20Features, custom labels doesn't seem to be a feature for MeeGo either, although someone could add it there as a feature request.