Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Reordering Last Name and First Name.

Reordering Last Name and First Name

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 27, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


2

You may have a worksheet containing many cells with names that are in LastName, FirstName MI format. A common example of this would be an Excel worksheet designed to work as an expense account reporting form. You may want to convert these employee names into standard format, i.e. FirstName MI LastName. Performing this operation on more than a handful of cells can become quite cumbersome.

To make the conversion job easier, you can use a handy formula that rearranges the parts of the name for you. Assume that cell A1 contains the name Doe, Jane Q. and you want the conversion (Jane Q. Doe) to appear in cell B1. Place the following formula in B1:

=RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-LEN(LEFT(A1,FIND(",",A1)
-1))-2) & " " & LEFT(A1,FIND(",",A1)-1)

The formula works by breaking the string based on the placement of the comma. The formula will also work with suffixes and multiple middle initials as long as there is one and only one comma present in the source cell.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2168) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Reordering Last Name and First Name.

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

Dates Updating when Converting

Word allows you to convert documents from WordPerfect format to Word. In doing so, you may notice that some dates in the ...

Discover More

Making Endnotes Part of the Footnotes

In a document that contains both footnotes and endnotes, you may want to convert your endnotes to footnotes. This tip ...

Discover More

Changing the Size of a Drawing Object

Add a drawing object to your worksheet, and at some point, you may want to change that object's size. You can easily ...

Discover More

Dive Deep into Macros! Make Excel do things you thought were impossible, discover techniques you won't find anywhere else, and create powerful automated reports. Bill Jelen and Tracy Syrstad help you instantly visualize information to make it actionable. You’ll find step-by-step instructions, real-world case studies, and 50 workbooks packed with examples and solutions. Check out Microsoft Excel 2019 VBA and Macros today!

More ExcelTips (menu)

Specifying Proper Case

If you need to change the case of letters in a cell, one of the functions you can use is the PROPER function. This tip ...

Discover More

Cleaning Text

You can use the CLEAN worksheet function to remove any non-printable characters from a cell. This can come in handy when ...

Discover More

Converting Codes to Characters

Character codes are the numeric values used, by a computer, to signify various alphanumeric characters. You can use the ...

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.

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 six more than 1?

2019-01-07 10:32:25

Jaime

Hello -

MC KEEN MICHELE D

If I need to rearrange this name to show Michele D Mc Keen, how would I do it since it has "mc"?


2017-12-23 05:25:16

Rick Rothstein

Here is a shorter formula which will produce the same results as the one shown in this article...

=MID(A1&" "&A1,FIND(" ",A1)+1,LEN(A1)-1)


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.