SQL question (it should be simple)

[regul8or]

I suppose it's a simple question, but I'm a complete newbie with SQL.

I have a 2-column table with the entries like these:
John - Smith
John - Lennon
Paul - McCartney
Paul - Mauriat
Paul - Smith
Stephen - King
Stephen - Hawking
etc...

I need a table where 1st column contain only unique elements and whatever value in 2nd column, like
John - Lennon
Paul - McCartney
Stephen - King

[Tony Lintunen]

I suppose it's a simple question, but I'm a complete newbie with SQL.

I have a 2-column table with the entries like these:
John - Smith
John - Lennon
Paul - McCartney
Paul - Mauriat
Paul - Smith
Stephen - King
Stephen - Hawking
etc...

I need a table where 1st column contain only unique elements and whatever value in 2nd column, like
John - Lennon
Paul - McCartney
Stephen - King

This is one way you could do it:

SELECT tt1.firstname,
(select top 1 tt2.lastname from testtable tt2 where tt1.firstname = tt2.firstname) as LastName
from TestTable tt1
group by firstname

Is there any criteria determining which John, Paul, Stephen, etc. would be selected since there are multiples of each?

[regul8or]

Thanks, Tony

That's solved it.

[ashishprem]

You can also try with
select distnct firstname,lastname from tablename;

[regul8or]

This will return a whole table (all Johns, Pauls etc) and it's clearly not what I needed.