How to Create Initials from a Name in Excel

Turn full names into initials like "JD" or "O.B." — and handle names with two or three words in one formula.

You will learn to

• Take the first letter of each of two words
• Format initials with periods in capitals
• Build initials for any number of words

How it works

For a two-word name, the initials are the first character of the cell plus the character right after the space: =LEFT(A2,1)&MID(A2,FIND(" ",A2)+1,1) turns "Jordan Davis" into "JD". Wrap it in UPPER to fix lowercase entries, and join "." between the letters if you want "J.D.".

In Excel 365 there is a neater approach that works for any number of words: split the name into words with TEXTSPLIT, take the first letter of each with LEFT, and join them with CONCAT: =CONCAT(LEFT(TEXTSPLIT(A2," "),1)). "Ana Sofia Reyes" becomes "ASR".

=LEFT(A2,1)&MID(A2,FIND(" ",A2)+1,1)