merging two fields

[stumped89]

If I have two fields, first & last name, is there a way to
eliminate duplicates of the full name (first and last together)?

 

[jjlogan]

Your question was how to eliminate duplicates in full name. I can see a couple of options: 1) If possible, change the first names (e.g. Jim to James, Larry to Lawrence), 2) If you can't change the names as they exist, consider setting up a concatenated field, combining the first and last, and then add a numeric to the end of the string in this field SmithJohn1, SmithJohn2, ...), 3) Use a different key field for looking up personnel, e.g. SSN or Employee No. or psuedo name (nickname...). What you might do would depend on how many records are in the tables, how many duplicates you have, what related fields you might be displaying with the names fields e.g. in a person look-up form, how secure the data needs to be from people seeing a record of data that is not the correct John Smith, etc. At the car dealership I visit, the first question I'm asked is which last name am I since they have in their database many customers with my last name. In this application, its not a big problem to say, I'm the one on XYZ Street in ZYX City.