Excel: How do I take the first character of 1 cell and prepend it to another cell and place it in a 3rd cell?

Question

Hi

I have first names in one column and second names in another, I want to create a third column that contains the first character from the first name and add it to the surname creating first initial + surname.

John & Smith = jsmith

How can I do this using Excel?

Thanks all

Answer 1

=CONCATENATE(LEFT(A1,1), B1)

Assuming A1 holds 1st names; B1 Last names

Answer 2

Personally I like the & function for this

Assuming that you are using cells A1 and A2 for John Smith

=left(a1,1) & b1

If you want to add text between, for example a period

=left(a1,1) & "." & b1

Answer 3

Use following formula
=CONCATENATE(LOWER(MID(A1,1,1)),LOWER( B1))
for
Josh Smith = jsmith
note that A1 contains name and B1 contains surname

Chris
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