diff --git a/share/functions/__fish_complete_users.fish b/share/functions/__fish_complete_users.fish
index 120c62494..42473891d 100644
--- a/share/functions/__fish_complete_users.fish
+++ b/share/functions/__fish_complete_users.fish
@@ -1,10 +1,12 @@
-
+# This should be used where you want user names with a description. Such as in an argument
+# completion. If you just want a list of user names use __fish_print_users.
 function __fish_complete_users --description "Print a list of local users, with the real user name as a description"
     if test -x /usr/bin/getent
-        getent passwd | cut -d : -f 1,5 | string replace -r ':' \t
+        /usr/bin/getent passwd | cut -d : -f 1,5 | string replace -r ':' \t
     else if test -x /usr/bin/dscl
-        dscl . -list /Users RealName | string match -r -v '^_' | string replace -r ' {2,}' \t
-    else if test -e /etc/passwd
+        # This is the "Directory Service command line utility" used on macOS in place of getent.
+        /usr/bin/dscl . -list /Users RealName | string match -r -v '^_' | string replace -r ' {2,}' \t
+    else if test -r /etc/passwd
         string match -v -r '^\s*#' </etc/passwd | cut -d : -f 1,5 | string replace ':' \t
     end
 end
diff --git a/share/functions/__fish_print_users.fish b/share/functions/__fish_print_users.fish
index 8f3f77d47..200cd5a8e 100644
--- a/share/functions/__fish_print_users.fish
+++ b/share/functions/__fish_print_users.fish
@@ -1,11 +1,7 @@
-
+# This should be used where you want user names without a description. If you also want
+# a description, such as when getting a list of users for a completion, you probably want
+# __fish_complete_users.
 function __fish_print_users --description "Print a list of local users"
-    if test -x /usr/bin/getent
-        getent passwd | cut -d : -f 1
-    else if test -x /usr/bin/dscl # OS X support
-        dscl . -list /Users | string match -r -v '^_'
-    else if test -e /etc/passwd
-        string match -v -r '^\w*#' </etc/passwd | cut -d : -f 1
-    end
+    # Leave the heavy lifting to __fish_complete_users but strip the descriptions.
+    __fish_complete_users | string replace -r '^([^\t]*)\t.*' '$1'
 end
-