IF your name range is in column A beginning from Column A2 type this on
column B2 and copy it all the way down

=IF(COUNTIF($A$2:A2,A2)1,VLOOKUP(A2,$A1:B$2,2,0), MAX($B$1:B1)+1)



"Dino" wrote:

I have a spreadsheet of names, and I need to assign a unique number to each
of the names. Some entries are repeated, so each duplicate should have the
same number. The numbers assigned would be in a different column than the
names. For example, the result I need would look like this:
1 John Smith
1 John Smith
2 Carla Jones
3 Jenny Fortuna
4 James Wood
4 James Wood

and so on. Is there a formula that I can use to accomplish this, so I don't
have to go through the entire spreadsheet and type these numbers in? If
anyone can help, thanks.