Thanks Mike, I'll give it ago.
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painless2


"Mike H" wrote:

Hi,

You probably need a 'Helper Column'.

Assuming you names are in column A1:A1000 put this in row 1 of an empty
column and drag down

= COUNTIF($A$1:$A$1000,A1)

Select all you columns including the 'Helper' and sort Descending and the
most common names will be at the top. You can also hide the helper column.

Mike

"Painless2" wrote:

Hope somone can help, this should be easy but I'm new to excel.
I have a sheet of 1000+ names with columns of surname, initial, date of
birth. I need to count the incidence of unique records and then rearrange the
sheet with the name with the most occurrences at the top, and following names
in decreasing incidence. Any ideas gratefully acceted
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painless2