As per this forum post: http://www.kendoui.com//forums/mvc/grid/bug-grouping-name-does-not-honor-mvc-attributes.aspx, the MVC Helpers for the Grid honor the Display attribute in certain situations, but not others.Namely, when a column with a [Display] attribute is turned into a Group, the DisplayAttribute.Name is no longer honored.

But even that is technically not the correct behavior. The correct behavior is for the group to use DisplayAttribute.GroupName, then DisplayAttribute.Name if the GroupName is not specified.