Try this, assuming your combined name is in A1:

=LEFT(A1,SEARCH(" ",A1)-1)

Hope this helps.

Pete

On Aug 19, 10:19*am, RaY wrote:
I have first and last names in a list and need to have excel pull only the
first name. These names are all in the same column. I tried using LEFT but
can't figure out how to have excel stop once it hits the space between the
first and last name.

-RaY