How To Use Commas Between Names

I ve recently received a handful of questions asking for clarification about rule governing the use of commas with names and titles.

How to use commas between names. Outlook and any other email program that looks for names in the last name first name format where the program uses the comma as a delimiter may run into problems if you separate email recipients with commas. In the second example we use the commas to set off jane as effectively a nonrestrictive clause. My boss jennifer smith just gave me a bonus. Here are two common issues to watch out for in your writing. An exception to the rule.

Comma between direct quote and attributive tag. Use commas to separate words and word groups in a simple series of three or more items. Here are some more examples a bit more obvious i hope. Use commas to separate attributive tags from quotations. When a geographical name has two or more elements to it use a comma after each different type of element city or town region state country and follow the last element with a comma unless it occurs at the end of a sentence.

Attributive tags can come before after or even in the middle of a quote. When the last comma in a series comes before and or or after daughter in law in the above example it is known as the oxford comma most newspapers and magazines drop the oxford comma in a simple series apparently. Don t use a comma between two independent clauses without a conjuction if you have two independent clauses you can t just use a comma to. My estate goes to my husband son daughter in law and nephew. An attributive tag is a phrase like he said or she claimed that identifies the speaker of a quote or piece of dialogue.

Two places where you shouldn t use commas. Add comma in excel between names using substitute function i can recall the countless times when i was given a list of names from the hr department and the last name was not separated from the first name by a comma. Because the speaker has only one daughter including the name provides no additional information on who they are speaking about. Because this post has become so popular i ve made it available in pdf format. Email clients that use commas as delimiters typically use semicolons to separate multiple addresses in their header fields.

Add commas between names first name middle name and last name if you want to add commas between names as below screenshot shown you can use the formula which combines substitute function and trim function. Let s work with an example to know how to use substitute function and how to add a comma in excel between names using this function. The correct way to use commas with names and titles we use commas while combining multiple phrases in one sentence or writing about different items in a list. Click here to download.