How to separate last name and first names in single column into two new columns in MySQL?

For this, use SUBSTRING_INDEX() and REPLACE(). Let us first create a table −

mysql> create table DemoTable (Name varchar(100));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.53 sec)

Insert some records in the table using insert command. Here, we have inserted last name and first names −

mysql> insert into DemoTable values('Chris | Bob Brown');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.17 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable values('Carol | Robert Taylor');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.23 sec)
mysql> insert into DemoTable values('Sam | David Miller');
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.13 sec)

Display all records from the table using select statement −

mysql> select *from DemoTable;

This will produce the following output −

+-----------------------+
| Name                  |
+-----------------------+
| Chris | Bob Brown     |
| Carol | Robert Taylor |
| Sam   | David Miller |
+-----------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Following is the query to separate last name and first names into two new columns in MySQL −

mysql> SELECT REPLACE(Name, SUBSTRING_INDEX(Name, ' ', -1),'')
   AS FirstName, SUBSTRING_INDEX(Name, ' ', -1) AS LastName from DemoTable;

This will produce the following output −

+-----------------+----------+
| FirstName       | LastName |
+-----------------+----------+
| Chris | Bob     | Brown    |
| Carol | Robert  | Taylor   |
| Sam   | David   | Miller   |
+-----------------+----------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)