Hi!

It sounds like you probably want some type of lookup table/formula but you
need to provide more details.

The table would look like this:

Smith.............10.0
Underwood.....9.5
Ace...............5.75

So, now you have a table but what do you want to do with it? If you want to
use it to calculate pay, you might do something like this:

Total_Hours*VLOOKUP(A1,Sheet2!A1:B3,2,0)

Whe

A1 = name
Sheet2!A1:B3 = location of the lookup table
2 = the column number of the lookup table to return the value from
0 = means the lookup table is not sorted because you only want an exact
match

Biff

"Shirley" wrote in message
...
I have a Excel column which includes list of last names. I would like to
assisgn a distinctive numeric rate (in preceeding separate column) to each
last name. An example would be: Smith = 10.0; Underwood = 9.50; Ace =
5.75.
Then I will multiply the rate by hours worked (I can handle that part).
Thanks!
--
Shirley