Baffled by SumIf issue.

What I'm doing is this:

I have a list of 1000+ line items.
In another column I copy the name column and do a "remove duplicates"
Then I do the sum if, where column "A" is the names, column "b" is the quantity sold, and column "D" (for example) is my list with duplicates removed. In column "e" I do the sumif. So as to not do it over 100 times (the size of the paired down line items), I did the $. If I remove it, won't the list simply stop looking for all of the line items and find the name of one and that's it?