On Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:31:35 -0800, Irelandabroad
wrote:

I have a worksheet with several columns:

Column F Column K
21/10/2008 Smith
27/10/2008 Jones
28/10/2008 Smith
25/11/2008 Jones
3/12/2008 Johns
10/02/2009 Johns
2/06/2009 Ryan
4/02/2009 Ryan

I need to prepare a formula which will count the number of times each unique
name appears in a month. (i have several years of data)

Thanks

Instead of a formula, consider a Pivot Table.

Put Titles at the top of each column. e.g. Dates | Names
Insert/Pivot table

Drag Dates to Rows
Drag Names to Columns
Drag Names to Data (or Values)

Right-click in the Date area and select to Group Months (or Months and Years if
appropriate).

Apply some formats to make it look nice.
--ron