Distinct Number of Specific Items in List with MySQL

To find distinct number of specific items, use COUNT() along with GROUP BY clause. Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable1854
     (
     Name varchar(20)
     );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command −

mysql> insert into DemoTable1854 values('John-Smith');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1854 values('Chris-Brown');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1854 values('Adam-Smith');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1854 values('John-Doe');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable1854 values('John-Smith');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select * from DemoTable1854;

This will produce the following output −

+-------------+
| Name        |
+-------------+
| John-Smith  |
| Chris-Brown |
| Adam-Smith  |
| John-Doe    |
| John-Smith  |
+-------------+
5 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Here is the query to get the distinct number of specific items in list −

mysql> select Name,count(Name) from DemoTable1854
     where Name like 'John-%'
     group by Name;

This will produce the following output −

+------------+-------------+
| Name       | count(Name) |
+------------+-------------+
| John-Smith |           2 |
| John-Doe   |           1 |
+------------+-------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)