I have two words in one Name column, such as “Calamity Jane”. How can I separate the two names into 2 columns (cells) as a First Name (Jane) and a Last Name (Calamity)?
I know how to combine two cells to one Such as 
, but I’m looking to do the opposite.
Any help would be appreciated.
Hello,
you can simply
Data > Text to Columns ...
Hope that helps.
Thanks! It did help, and that worked for me.
The best way to solve the problem is to avoid it 
Compound data are bad (evil).
Second best is what @igorlius suggested. I would only like to add that you probably shouldn’t replace the original data, but first copy them and then do the Text to Columns on the new column. This way you can do repairs if needed.
If you are sure about the 2-word-syntax, you can anyway do the split already when you paste-in the data as Unformatted text.
If there are urgent reasons to prefer a soulution by formulas, you may visit the recent question Split concatenated text where you also find my comment hintiung expectable problems in special cases. “Split” might be the most appropriate term for the kind of task.
In addition I attach an example I had made orgiginally considering the other question, but did not publish there:
splitCompoundNames.ods
There the result is produced by an array-formula per row. You can do it basically the same way with a single-cell formula per column.
You surely know that the decison if the first “word” is the surname or the given name, cannot be made by the formulas. (I also wouldn’t expect “Calamity” to be a surname.)
You need to make the distinction your own way.
Thanks for that spreadsheet with instructions. I understand what you’re saying about avoid compounding things… but, I’m cobbling a better use of downloaded .csv data.
Inserting data copied from plain-text-files (csv) you can do the split on the fly using Paste Special.... IOt offerst (next to) the same options as the Text to Columns tool.
Opening a csv file directly with LibreOffice Calc you get also prompted to fill in the respective dialog-form.
