T-SQL substring - separating first and last name

Question

I have a column which has FirstName and LastName together. I\'m writing a report to separate the FirstName And LastName. How do I get the FirstName and LastName separated in

Answer 1

This will take care of names like "Firstname Z. Lastname" and "First Z Last"

SELECT
CASE 
    WHEN CHARINDEX(' ',name) = 0 THEN name
    WHEN CHARINDEX(' ',name) = PATINDEX('% _[., ]%',name) THEN RTRIM(SUBSTRING(name, 1, CHARINDEX(' ',name) + 2)) 
    ELSE SUBSTRING(name,1, CHARINDEX(' ',name))
END [firstname]
,CASE 
    WHEN CHARINDEX(' ',name) = 0 THEN ''
    WHEN CHARINDEX(' ',name) = PATINDEX('% _[., ]%',name) THEN LTRIM(SUBSTRING(name, CHARINDEX(' ',name) + 3,1000)) 
    ELSE SUBSTRING(name,CHARINDEX(' ',name)+1,1000)
END [lastname]
FROM [myTable]