Photo filenames being changed, due to Photostream?

Question

I have an Eye-Fi card set up to import photos taken with my Canon DSLR to my Photostream.  Other than the occasional image not being imported, which is discussed in other threads already, it seems to be working.  It allows me to view photos taken on my iPad almost immediately and I'm semi-happy with the set-up.  I'd be thrilled if not for the occasional missed photo glitch.
My workaround for the missed photo glitch is to occasionally plug my card into my iMac and check the card with iPhoto.  Anything not already imported is recognized and tehn imported, in other words it "catches up".  Not ideal, but it works.
It's been about 3 months since I've connected my iPhone of iPad to my Mac, but the last iOS update noted that they would need to be connected and wifi sync enabled for wireless syncing, which was what I had before.  This week-end was my first opportunity to do that.
When I did, iPhoto shows that I have about 1900 photos already imported, but about 2500 not imported!  That made no sense since I sync all my photos for my iOS devices through Photostream.  I started comparing photos and they all seem to be in iPhoto, obviously I've not compared all of them and not sure I'd ever have the time to do it.  Not in this lifetime anyway!  They seem to be duplicates in every way except file name.  Exif information is exactly the same, down to the second in both photos, but one is called IMG_7143.jpg, the other IMG_1124.jpg.  Not even close enough to each other to explain a slight similarity, but what could possibly be happening in this workflow that could be creating entirely new file names.  Isn't that created by the camera when the file/photo is created??
I apologize if this has been covered in another topic already but when I tried to do a search for information I just kept finding posts about how to change file names during import, changes, etc.  Nothing about this issue. I'm running latest versions of all software, OS X and iOS on all devices.
Thanks in advance for any information.
Sláinte

Answer 1

I downloaded 4300 photos from my iPad to a desktop folder using Image Capture.  Prior to download, iPad showing in iPhoto, it stated I had 1837 photos already imported, 2463 new photos for import.  After adding all the photos to the new folder iPhoto reported the same results when I selected the folder for import.  I was able to compare some of the photos that I could see "would be" duplicated if I were to run the import and, again, they are exactly the same (Exif) except for the file names.  For example, when I compared 5 photos from 2/23/14 that were the same they are IMG_0268 through 0272 in iPhoto.  In the image capture download folder they are IMG_3729 through 3733.  It seems to me the file names on the iPad are the original names since they are in line with the file numbering on the camera right now.
I'm sure this is a dumb question but I'm going to ask it anyway, could Photostream be renaming files??  It's the only thing that makes sense because the current workflow is take photo -> wifi transfer (Eye Fi) to iPad -> iPad sync with Photostream -> Photostream sync with iPhoto.  Due to the issue with incomplete Photostream syncs I always check to make sure everything on the card is synced with iPhoto before erasing, there's always a few but this always catches them.  The issue is that there are a bunch of photos on the iPad that were taken with the DSLR camera and have already been synced to iPhoto but now have a different name and appear to iPhoto to be new and unique.
Frustrating!!