It would be helpful to see the data and your expected result after sorting.

Mike

Let's say in col A we have:

ralph
nigel
ziggy
mark
edward
bob
apple
alone
agravate
abalone

In B1 enter:

=COUNTIF($A$1:$A$10,">"&A1)+1 and copy down

we see:

ralph    2
nigel    3
ziggy    1
mark    4
edward    5
bob    6
apple    7
alone    8
agravate    9
abalone    10

col B is "pseudo-large"  the biggest value corresponds to the first in
alphabetic order.

Finally in C1 enter:

=INDEX(A:A,MATCH(11-ROW(),B$1:B$10,0))  and copy down.  This is the lookup
part.

and we see:

ralph    2    abalone
nigel    3    agravate
ziggy    1    alone
mark    4    apple
edward    5    bob
bob    6    edward
apple    7    mark
alone    8    nigel
agravate    9    ralph
abalone    10    ziggy

Try this array formula**  (does not account for empty cells):

For an ascending sort:

=INDEX(rng,MATCH(SMALL(COUNTIF(rng,"<"&rng),ROWS($1:1)),COUNTIF(rng,"<"&rng),0))

For a descending sort simply change each instance of  "<" with ">".

Biff

Hi,

Here are two short solutions, both entered as arrays:

=OFFSET(A$1,MATCH(ROW(A1),COUNTIF(D,"<="&D),),)
=INDEX(D,MATCH(ROW(A1),COUNTIF(D,"<="&D),))

The first assumes A$1 is the cell directly above the data D, where your
names are.  Array formulas are entered using Shift Ctrl Enter instead of
Enter.   I have named the range where the names are as D, if you don't, then
remember to make the range absolute or at least the rows of the range.