@Jovychris_A 

RE: ...once you merge customers/vendors, the merge profile will become an inactive customer/vendor from your list. For example, if you combine Anna with Marie, Marie will stay active while keeping Anna's transactions, and Anna will become inactive with no transactions left under her name.

No, it won't. QuickBooks Desktop does nothing of the sort. In Desktop, when you merge names (or items, or accounts, or any other list records you're allowed to merge), the record being merged away disappears completely and all of the data that used it is updated to use the record that remains.

Also, there is no such thing in as a "merge profile".  That seems to be something you made up. When you merge two things, you start out with two records and you end up with one. That's it.