Counting Formula

Stephanie Taylor

What formula do I use to count how many times a name shows up in a column?

 

For example:

I have a column titled "Last Name" I need to keep a running count of how many times "Smith" shows up in this column. 

Stephanie Taylor

Thanks anyway.  I figured it out.

Kate French

Hi Stephanie, glad to hear you got this resolved! For the curious and future customers with this question, a solution we suggest is to add a new column to the sheet called "Count." Then, enter a COUNTIF formula in your new column that will get a count of how many times the name in the adjacent column appears. 

 

In your example, the formula would look like the following on row 1: =COUNTIF([Last Name]:[Last Name], [Last Name]1)

 

Note that this formula is dynamic, and will keep a count of all of the different last names in the sheet - for a list of only Smith, plug "Smith" (including the quotes) into the formula instead of the [Last Name]1 cell reference.

 

Let me know if you have any questions and I'll be happy to help!

Kate