Parsing First and Last Name when there is a hyphen

[Tessa]

Hi All,

I have a column of data that contains both the first and last name. I can use the example in the RegEx sample to easily parse most of it - except when it comes to names with hyphens. 

I'm using the brackets to illustrate how I want the cells to appear:

[Joe-Schmo Johnson] needs to be [Joe-Schmo][Johnson] 

I also get a NULL value if there is no first or last name; how can I replace a missing name with "N/A" or something to indicate it isn't there?

[Tom] becomes [NULL]

Thanks!!

[mifrahm]

Hello there @Jonathan-Sherman ! I had a similar situation that I am trying to work on. There are two seperate files that I need to join on the basis of names.

In excel file 1

The names are list as below:

Brad Ge Va Gruz (where Ge Va Cruz is the last name)

Andre F Hooc (where F is middle initial)

John Smith

No Employee

TBH_#####

ABC_####

Joan Nithesa-Gone (where Nitesha-Gone is the last name)

Johnny Sean Hurtz (where Sean Hurtz is the last name)

John G Henry Jr  (where henry jr is last name)

In excel file 2 

The names are listed as an example below

John Smith

Joan Nithesa-Gone

Andre Hooc

Johnny Sean Hurtz

The only way to match data in both files is through the names. But because of file 2 not including middle initials it ends up having fallout data. Any way you can help me on this?

I tried copying the solution for @Tessa example. But it wasn't properly dicing it. Thanks for your help in advance from someone new to alteryx. 🙂

[BrandonB]

@mifrahm the tricky part will be  situations like Johnny Sean Hurtz (where Sean Hurtz is the last name). I could see a slight tweak making the example above work if the middle initial is ALWAYS one character long. 

You may have a situation better suited for Fuzzy Matching: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Videos/Fuzzy-Matching-for-Beginners/td-p/330575

If you have non-identical names that you are looking to match, this may be more helpful than parsing out names. If you create a new topic and provide two sample tables of data to be matched I think the community should be able to help you build something that will get you close.

[mifrahm]

Thank you for the reply @BrandonB - I just posted over here. https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Community-Ideas/How-to-Join-Names-when-formatted-differentl...

Open to any suggestions and appreciate your support!

[mifrahm]

@BrandonB - is there anyone you recommend I can reach out to regarding fuzzy matching? Unfortunately, no one replied to the post I created.

[BrandonB]

@mifrahm it looks like it was posted to the Alteryx Designer Ideas page for new product suggestions rather than Designer Discussions where people address workflow related questions.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/bd-p/designer-discussions is where you want to post

[mifrahm]

Oh my... newbie problems haha! Thank you for calling this out!!