Extract the last substring from a cell

Question

I have names in a column. I need to split just the last names from that column into another column.

The last name is delimited by a space from the right side.

Answer 1

Right(A1, Len(A1)-Find("(asterisk)",Substitute(A1, "(space)","(asterisk)",Len(A1)-Len(Substitute(A1,"(space)", "(no space)")))))

Try this. Hope it works.

Answer 2

The answer provided by @Jean provides a working but obscure solution (although it doesn't handle trailing spaces)

As an alternative consider a vba user defined function (UDF)

Function RightWord(r As Range) As Variant
    Dim s As String
    s = Trim(r.Value)
    RightWord = Mid(s, InStrRev(s, " ") + 1)
End Function

Use in sheet as
=RightWord(A2)

Answer 3

Simpler would be: =TRIM(RIGHT(SUBSTITUTE(TRIM(A2)," ",REPT(" ",99)),99))

You can use A2 in place of TRIM(A2) if you are sure that your data doesn't contain any unwanted spaces.

Based on concept explained by Rick Rothstein: http://www.excelfox.com/forum/showthread.php/333-Get-Field-from-Delimited-Text-String

Sorry for being necroposter!