Understanding Names

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 4, 2020)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003

You already know that Excel allows you to use cell ranges within formulas and as arguments to functions. For instance, the following is a formula that uses the SUM function. This function uses a cell range as an argument:

=SUM(D3:D18) * 1.05

While this is perfectly allowable, it might not be very understandable to someone else or to yourself at a later date. You might need to go back and figure out exactly what the cell range D3:D18 represents. To overcome such a problem, Excel allows you to use names to represent individual cells or cell ranges. For example, the cell range D3:D18 could represent the regional sales detail; you could assign the name Regional_Sales to this range, and the formula could be entered as follows:

=SUM(Regional_Sales) * 1.05

When compared to the previous formula, this is much more understandable. Automatically you know what sum the formula is using.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2043) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Converting a Range of URLs to Hyperlinks

Converting a single URL into a hyperlink is easy. Converting hundreds or thousands can be much harder if you have to rely ...

Discover More

Checking for Duplicate Rows Based on a Range of Columns

When working with data in Excel, you might want to figure out which rows of data represent duplicates of other rows. If ...

Discover More

Moving Footnote References Using Find and Replace

When you are editing a document, you may need to modify where the author placed footnotes relative to surrounding ...

Discover More

Excel Smarts for Beginners! Featuring the friendly and trusted For Dummies style, this popular guide shows beginners how to get up and running with Excel while also helping more experienced users get comfortable with the newest features. Check out Excel 2019 For Dummies today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Selecting a Word

There are a few editing tricks you can apply in Excel the same as you do in Word. Selecting a word from the text in a ...

Discover More

Automatically Breaking Text

Want to convert the text in a cell so that it wraps after every word? You could edit the cell and press Alt+Enter after ...

Discover More

Creating a Shortcut for Pasting Values

Excel's Paste Special command is used quite a bit. If you want to create some shortcuts for the command, here's some ways ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is seven more than 1?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)

This Site

Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Newest Tips
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.

Links and Sharing
OUR COMPANY
OUR PRODUCTS
OUR SITES
 

Copyright © 2026 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.