How can I count unique pairs of values in SQL?

Question

With the following sql statement I can get all unique values with their counts for a given column:

select column, count(column) as count 
         from table          


        

Answer 1

If you just want the count of how many distinct pairs, you could do this more simply. A GROUP BY clause is not necessary.

SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT first_name, last_name) AS count_names FROM Table