How to separate names in Excel

The Split Names tool divides first, last, and middle names as well as salutations and titles from one cell into individual cells.

Before you start

The add-in doesn't process merged cells. If the selected range contains merged cells, the tool will notify you. We recommend either unmerging the cells beforehand or selecting a column without merged cells after starting the add-in.

How to split names into new columns

Start the Split Names tool

Run the tool by clicking the Split Names icon in the Text group on the Ablebits Data tab:
Start Split Names.

Or find the Split Names icon in the Transform group on the Ablebits Tools tab:
Start Split Names.

Separate names into columns

You will see the Split Names pane with the tool’s options:
Select the range and choose the columns you want to see.

  1. Click the Expand selection icon and have the entire column selected automatically.
  2. Use the Select Range icon to change the selected column to another one:
    Select a column with names you want to split.
  3. If there's a header in the selected column, select the My table has 1 header row checkbox.
    Tip. If there are more header rows in your table, click 1 header row, enter the number of header rows, and they won't be pulled apart:
    Change the number of header rows in a column with names.
  4. Select the checkboxes with all the name parts you would like to see in new columns. The add-in recognizes over 80 kinds of Salutations / titles, First names, Middle names, Last name prefixes, Last names, Initials, and/or over 30 kinds of Name suffixes / post-nominal letters.

Click Split and get the columns with the selected name units inserted to the right of your original column.