Select the first row in a join of two tables in one statement

Question

I need to select only the first row from a query that joins tables A and B. On table B exist multiple records with same name. There are not identifiers in any of the two tab

Answer 1

Try to dedupe B like this

SELECT  A.NAME, bb.DATA1, bb.DATA2 
FROM    A 
JOIN    B bb
ON      A.NAME = B.NAME
WHERE   NOT EXISTS (SELECT  *
                    FROM    B
                    WHERE   NAME = bb.NAME
                            AND (DATA1 > bb.DATA1
                                OR DATA1 = bb.DATA1 AND DATA2 > bb.DATA2))

Add more OR clauses if more DATAx columns exist.

If A contains duplicates too, simply use DISTINCT as in the OP.