Extracting a first name and surname from a full name in Excel can be a useful way to organize and sort data. There are a few different approaches you can take to accomplish this task.
One option is to use the “LEFT” and “RIGHT” functions to extract the first and last names from the full name. For example, suppose you have a column of full names in column A, and you want to extract the first names into column B and the last names into column C. You can use the following formulas:
For the first names: =LEFT(A2,FIND(” “,A2)-1)
For the last names: =RIGHT(A2,LEN(A2)-FIND(” “,A2))
This works by using the “FIND” function to locate the space between the first and last name in the full name. The “LEFT” function is then used to extract all of the characters up to but not including the space, and the “RIGHT” function is used to extract all of the characters after the space.
Another option is to use the “SPLIT” function, which is available in Excel 365 and later versions. The “SPLIT” function allows you to split a single cell into multiple cells based on a specified delimiter. For example, you could use the following formula to split the full name into first and last name cells:
=SPLIT(A2,” “)
This will split the full name into two cells, with the first name in the first cell and the last name in the second cell.
If you are using Google Sheets, then both of these formulas will work exactly the same.
No matter which approach you choose, extracting first and last names from a full name in Excel can be a useful way to organize and manipulate your data.
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