=COUNTIF(S) question

[stonypaul]

I have a spreadsheet with a year's worth of dates in column A, i.e. 01-01-2011 onwards and in columns B, C, D onwards I have a set of names in each column which can fluctuate dependent on the date in column A. If I want to use =COUNTIF or =COUNTIFS to count the common names by row dependent on the date in column A how would I do this please? I've been playing around with INDEX, VLOOKUP and MATCH but with no luck. Thank you.

	A	          B	     C	        D	  E
1	01/01/11	Petrina	Caroline	Liz	Dawn
2	02/01/11	Petrina	Caroline	Liz	Dawn
3	03/01/11	Petrina	Caroline	Liz	Dawn
4	04/01/11	Petrina	Caroline	Liz	Dawn
5	05/01/11	Petrina	Caroline	Liz	Dawn
6	06/01/11	Petrina	Caroline	Liz	Dawn
7	07/01/11	Petrina	Caroline	Liz	Dawn
8	08/01/11	Petrina	Caroline	Liz	Dawn

 

[GlennUK]

What do you mean by "count the common names by row"?

 

[stonypaul]

What do you mean by "count the common names by row"?

OK sorry for the confusion. I want a formula that specifies a row based on the date in column A, and then specifies a name, and then a count is made of the occurrences of the specified name in the specified row. For instance below the name Petrina would return a count of 2 for 01/01/11, a count of 4 for 02/01/11, and so on.

	 A	       B	      C	        D	       E
1	01/01/11	Petrina	Caroline	 Petrina	 Dawn
2	02/01/11	Petrina	Petrina	  Petrina	 Petrina
3	03/01/11	Caroline   Caroline	 Caroline	Dawn
4	04/01/11	Petrina	Dawn	     Dawn	    Dawn

 

[GlennUK]

Is this what you want:

Excel Workbook
	A	B	C	D	E
1	01/01/2011	Petrina	Caroline	Petrina	Dawn
2	02/01/2011	Petrina	Petrina	Petrina	Petrina
3	03/01/2011	Caroline	Caroline	Caroline	Dawn
4	04/01/2011	Petrina	Dawn	Dawn	Dawn
5
6			Date	Name
7		Criteria	01/01/2011	Petrina
8
9		result
10		2
Sheet6

?

 

[stonypaul]

Glenn that works, but I guess you knew that!

Many thanks for taking the time to look at this.

 

[GlennUK]

My pleasure.