This method will introduce the CONCATENATE function to merge only the initial letter of the first name and the last name such as AGreen representing Anne Green in Excel.

1. Select a blank cell you will place the concatenation result in, and enter the formula =CONCATENATE(LEFT(A2,1),B2) (A2 is the cell with the first name, and B2 is the cell with the last name) into it, and press the Enter key.

2. Keep selecting the concatenation result cell, and drag its AutoFill Handle to the range as you need.

And then you will see it concatenates multiple names and returns the initial letter of the first name and last name. See screenshot:

Batch combine multiple cells/rows/columns without losing data and date/number format in Excel

Normally when merging cells with the Merge feature in Excel, it will remove all cell contents except the first cell content. However, with Kutools for Excel's Combine (Rows & Columns) utility, you can easily batch combine multiple cells/rows/columns without losing data. What's more, this utility also supports remaining original date format and number formats in the combination results.

Sometimes, you may want to concatenate the first name and last name and return only the initials such as A.G. in Excel. You can also apply a formula to get it done.

1. Select a blank cell you will place the concatenation result in, and enter the formula =CONCATENATE(LEFT(A2,1),".",LEFT(B2,1),".") (A2 is the cell with the first name, and B2 is the cell with the last name) into it, and press the Enter key.

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2. Keep selecting the concatenation result cell, and drag its AutoFill handle to the range as you need.

And then you will see it concatenates multiple names and returns only the initials such as A.G. representing the full name Anne Green. See screenshot:

You can also try Kutools for Excel’s Remove by Position utility to concatenate the names and return the initials such as A.Green or A.G. representing the full name of Anne Green.

1. Select the proper name columns you will concatenate, and click Kutools > Text > Remove by Position.

Note: For returning A.Green after concatenation, please select the first name column; for returning A.G. after concatenation, please select both the first name column and the last name column. In our case, we select both of the first name column and the last name column.

2. In the opening Remove by Position dialog box, please type 999 into the Numbers box, check the Specify option and type 2 into following box, and click the Ok button. See screenshot:

And then you will see all characters are removed except the first one in each cell of selected columns.

3. Select a blank cell you will put the concatenation initial in, and enter the formula =CONCATENATE(I2,".",J2,".") (I2 is the cell with first name, and J2 is the cell with the last name) into it, and then drag the AutoFill handle to the range as you need.

Note: If you remove all characters except the first letter in the First name column only, please apply this formula =CONCATENATE(I2,".",J2).

And then you will see the first names and last names have been concatenated and returned initials. See screenshot:

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