Finding the top 3 most common results in a list and presenting them in a separate sheet

hi there,

i understand privacy, but you gotta give us some data to play with :-)... anyway, i found a website that generates names randomly - http://listofrandomnames.com/

that said, your spreadsheet is a haven to the Top 3 Excel sacrileges that i can think of - merged cells, more merged cells, and well, technicoloured merged cells...

so, i had to fix the portion where i provided a solution. your particular problem will take an ARRAY formula to solve (to the extent that my knowledge of Excel goes), and array formula does not tango with merged cells.

so, i un-merged the ones where i had to put in a formula, and instead used a beautiful and friendly substitute called "Center Across Selection" formatting - it looks and talks like a merged cell, but behaves like a gentile.

my other recommendation is that you create Named Ranges (such as funny_boy, funny_girl), instead of using regular ranges (such as A1:A10, B1:D25). in your specific case, they hold great utility because you have so many categories, and each category has 2 sub categories, and they are spread all across the worksheet, so much so that dealing with regular ranges will throw your head into a tailspin.

please see attached and adapt the formula to other sections of the worksheet, if this solution addresses your problem.

best.