[Solved] Sort a column of first and last names

[jimbokea]

Can you sort say a christian names and surnames in a column by the surname without putting the surname first?

[robleyd]

Not really, no.

[floris v]

An old trick, maybe not the best, is to use a helper column. Copy the list to a new column, select that column, then Data - Text to Columns..., tick Space as separator. That will give you several columns with christian names and hopefully one with surnames. Edit those to get a column with surnames. Now comes the tricky part. Move the surnames column next to your full names column, select both, then sort, using the surnames column as key.

Edit: Inspired by Hagar's warning: There is no known algorithm that can tell the difference between christian names and surnames, or can tell which parts of a name with three or more elements are christian names and which ones are part of the surname. You will have to inspect each row with three or more name elements and combine surname elements of the surnames in a single cell before you can sort them.

[Hagar Delest]

Beware of corner cases with the separator when there are names are surnames have spaces...

[Lupp]

Compound names are a mess from the beginning and should never be considered data.
See https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/fa ... out-names/ 1. through 40. and the statements below.
(An exception could be if all your contacts have names of type John Doe that are syntactically separable by exactly one space.)