Question

I have a SQL Table with a column called FullName which contains, for example, “John Smith”.

How can order the data by the last name that appears in the FullName column?

For a long name like “Laurence John Fishburne”, I would like to order the data by the word “Fishburne”.

Thus, names are stored in the order

• First Name
• Middle Names
• Last Name

I am using Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

Answer 1

When in doubt, do it yourself:

Select
*
From
Users
Order By
LTrim(Reverse(Left(Reverse(FullName), CharIndex(' ', Reverse(FullName))))) Asc,
FullName Asc -- Fall-over for when there isn't a last name