Double sort in Excel or SQL

I have a weird table-sorting issue that I cannot figure out in Excel or SQL.

Here’s a table sorted by column 2, “Letter”.

Name	Letter
Dan	A
Moe	A
Ted	B
Dan	C
Joe	F
Noe	F

What I need is the table sorted by Letter BUT… if there are any duplicates in the “Name” column, I need those grouped–which would break the sorting in column 2. So below, even though the table is sorted by Letter, I want the two Dans together:

Name	Letter
Dan	A
Dan	C
Moe	A
Ted	B
Joe	F
Noe	F

Thanks for any help!

Answer

I would try something like this.

SELECT t.name, t.letter
  FROM table t
  JOIN (SELECT table.name, MIN(table.letter) AS min_letter_by_name
          FROM table GROUP BY table.name)
    ON t.name = table.name
  ORDER BY min_letter_by_name, name, letter