Get name from email address

Summary

To extract the name part of an email address, you use a formula that uses the LEFT and FIND functions. In the generic form above, email represents the email address you are working with. In the example, we are using this formula:

=LEFT(C4,FIND("@",C4)-1)

Generic formula

=LEFT(email,FIND("@",email)-1)

Explanation

At the core, this formula is extracting characters starting from the left, and using the FIND function to figure out how many characters to extract.

First, FIND looks for the "@" character inside the email address "achang@maaker.com". The "@" character is the 7th character so FIND returns 7. The number 1 is then subtracted from 7 to yield 6. This is done to prevent the formula from extracting the "@" along with the name. The LEFT function then extracts 6 characters from the email address, starting from the left. So:

=LEFT(C4,FIND("@",C4)-1)
=LEFT("achang@maaker.com",FIND("@","achang@maaker.com")-1)
=LEFT("achang@maaker.com",7-1)
=LEFT("achang@maaker.com",6)
="achang"

Author

Dave Bruns

Hi - I'm Dave Bruns, and I run Exceljet with my wife, Lisa. Our goal is to help you work faster in Excel. We create short videos, and clear examples of formulas, functions, pivot tables, conditional formatting, and charts.