With your names in column B, assuming them to be forenames, then
="Dear "&B1&","
If the names are last names, then if you had Title in another column,
say title in column A, Forename in Column B and Lastname in column C
="Dear "&A1&" C1"&","
The only way to do that would be with a huge lookup table with all first
names in column A, and your designation of gender (as Mr or Mrs) in
column B.
Designate this table as Names
="Dear "&VLOOKUP(B1,names,2,0)&" "&B1&" "&C1
I still think you would have problems with this.
What about Alex? Is that Alexander or Alexandra, and i am sure there
will be many more cases where it wouldn't work.
Some first names are not gender-specific (e.g. Evelyn).
Some names are not organised as first/last name as you expect. (e.g
Chinese).
Some names will be of recent origin and not in any pre-existin
database. (After all, every name was new at some point in its history
and you should see some of the neologisms I have seen...)
Best collect the salutation from the target: that way you stand a goo
chance of getting it right.
Al
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