Hi there. This educational post is on sorting names. I do plan on making a math educational post on sorting decimal numbers as a follow up to this post.
Topics
- Sorting Names & Being Organized
- First Letter Sorting
- Same First Letter Case
- Dealing With The Same First Two Letters
- ZYX Order
- Practice Problems
- Answers To Practice Problems
Sorting Names & Being Organized
Being organized helps in finding information and items in a faster and less confusing way. In a doctor's office, patient folders are sorted in ABC order by last name. The last name starting with A could be located at the top left while last names with Z are located at the bottom right of a shelving system.
First Letter Sorting
For the name sorting, we will sort in ABC order where the letter A is first, B is second and so on all the way to the letter Z.
Given the names Alisha, Chris, Ben and Michael we can sort the names in this order.
- Alisha
- Ben
- Chris
- Michael
The letter A is before B, B is before C, and Michael is last in this last as the letter M is way after C.
Same First Letter Case
What happens if there is a tie in the first letter? The second letter in the names that have a first letter tie have to be compared.
When comparing between the names Albert and Abby, Abby is before Albert the second letter b in Abby is before the second letter of l in Albert.
Dealing With The Same First Two Letters
If there are names that have the first two letters that are matching, you have to go the next letter and compare them.
Consider the names Eli, Elaine, Ellen and Elena. All four of these names have the same first two letters of e and l. Now we compare the third letter from each name. The letter a Elaine is before the letter e in Elena. After Elena would be Eli. The last name of the four would be Ellen as the letter l is after i in Eli.
The order would be this:
- Elaine
- Elena
- Eli
- Ellen
If there is a case of two names where one name is a short version of the other name, the short version name is before the longer name. For example, Al is before Alvin. Both Al and Alvin share the same first two letters but Al contains no letters after the letter l while Alvin has three more letters than Al.
ZYX Order
If for any weird reason you needed to arrange names in the ZYX order instead of the ABC order, just remember that Z is first and A is last. Deal with the beginning letters accordingly.
Practice Problems
Arrange the following list of names in ABC order.
Boris, Marie, Nikola, Alexander, Elijah
Helen, David, Harris, Michael, Julia, Amanda
Tom, Taryn, Tara, Tommy, Tricia
Chris, Chrissy, Charlie, Carly, Celine
Patricia, Peter, Pamela, Pat, Petra, Patrick
Answers To Practice Problems
Alexander, Boris, Elijah, Marie, Nikola
Amanda, David, Harris, Helen, Julia, Michael
Tara, Taryn, Tom, Tommy, Tricia
Carly, Celine, Charlie, Chris, Chrissy
Pamela, Pat, Patricia, Patrick, Peter, Petra
