How to Extract First Names from a Full Name List in Excel
Excel Hack #5
If you have a list of names (First name + Last name), sometimes you may wish to separate all the first names quickly from the list. This could be for mail merge tasks where you want to have letters ad...
If you have a list of names (First name + Last name), sometimes you may wish to separate all the first names quickly from the list. This could be for mail merge tasks where you want to have letters addressing recipients with their first names, or other related tasks. This can be quickly done in Excel.
The workaround below makes the assumption that first names and last names on your list are separated from one another with a single space (if you suspect that the spacing may be uneven, you can use the =TRIM() function on the list items to remove extraneous spaces). It also assumes that all the names are written in the order of first name first, last name second.
Simply apply the formula below in a new column to extract all the first names:
=LEFT(A2,FIND(" ",A2)-1)
The above formula combines the Excel functions =FIND() and =LEFT
=FIND(): this finds the first instance of a single space within the recipient name cell (A2 in the example snapshot below) and returns the position.
=LEFT(): this extracts characters from the text string found in A2, starting from position 1 and ending at the position returned by the FIND() function - which logically should be the end of the first name
