Perhaps with something like this:

For a name in A1
B1: =LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1," ",""))+1

Does that help?

***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP-Pro


"Phil" wrote:

Hello,

I have to come up with a way to count the number of words in a cell (they
are actually names, separated by a space), so that I can find any cells that
have more than 3 names.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Phil.