Thanks for your help. In the list I was trying to work with, there were no
middle names (I had that wrong). And, the ones with the initials (A.J. Smith)
had no space between the initials, sooooooooooo, the space delimiter
suggestion solved the problem. The two-part last names and the names with
"Jr.", separated the last names into two columns, but the first part was in
the second column, and therefore still allowed me to alphabetize by the
second column. The few entries in the third column went along for the ride.

"JP Ronse" wrote:

Hi Puzzlesnok,

I'm afraid that you cannot easily do this because you cannot determine if a
name is part of the first name or part of the last name.

Allan Del Boca, to what belongs Del?
Andrew Paul Lutz, to what belongs Paul?

What you can do:

Data, Text to Columns, space as delimiter to spread all the parts to a
singel cell.
With COUNTIF(A1:A10, "<") you have the number of cells per row containing
some data.

If you have only 2 cells woith data, then you can recreate the name with B2
& " " & A2

If the result is 3 and the middle cell contains a point = C & A & B
=IF(ISERROR(FIND(".",B2,1)),"",C2 & " " & A2 & " " & B2)

The rest of the names will need a manual verification. Hope you get a better
response then this.

Wkr,

JP

"puzzlesnok" wrote in message
...
I have a list of complete names in a single column alphabetized by first
name. Examples: A. C. Johnson, Adrian Smith, Alex J. Anderson, Allan
Del
Boca, Andrew Paul Lutz, Jr.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE:
How can I alphabetize this list by last name to get: Anderson, Del Boca,
Johnson, Lutz (or Lutz, Jr.), Smith?
SECONDARY OBJECTIVE:
Also, can I do it and "keep" the rest of the name in the entry?
Thanks for your help.