Parse names and count them

[Dragutin]

Hi guys, I have a table with several names in one field, separated by semicolons. I want to be able to count how many times every name appears and graph the data.
Example:

Item 1 | First Last; First2 Last2; First3 Last3 |
Item 2 | First Last |
Item 3 | First Last; First2 Last2; |

I'm able to parse the names via the "data to columns" wizard, but I can't figure out how to get it all into one chart nicely because the hierarchy stuff in pivot tables keeps messing it up.

Thanks!

[TMS]

Just have a column with a count of the semicolons plus 1. That can be obtained using,for example, =LEN(A1)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1,";","")+1

Regards, TMS

[XOR LX]

Or, assuming you want a count of specific, individual names from that column (covering A2:A100, say), and that you have a list of all those names for which you wish to obtain this count, beginning in cell B2 (for example), enter this formula in cell C2 and copy down as required:

=SUMPRODUCT(LEN($A$2:$A$100)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE($A$2:$A$100,B2,"")))/LEN(B2)

Regards

[Dragutin]

Thanks for the replies, but I think I didn't explain myself well - I don't want to count how many names are in a table, I want to count how many times every name appears. Ideally, the output would be something like:
First1 Last1 // 2
First2 Last2 // 5
First3 Last3 // 1

If possible, I'd like to not have to put the names in a table beforehand to compare them, because I will have to keep adding new names to the table when an item appears.