Select 1000 distinct names from 100 million records via standard sql
ansi-sql, sql, sql-server, standards
Solution
Seems like you could use `TOP 1000` with `DISTINCT`:
SELECT DISINCT TOP 1000 FirstName
FROM WHData.dbo.tb_DimUserAccount
ORDER BY FirstName
Condensed SQL Fiddle Demo
Problem
I have a table `tb_FirstName` with one field `FirstName`. The table has 100 million non null records with lots of repetitions e.g. John occurs 2 million times. The distinct count of `FirstName` is over 2 million. How do I select 1000 distinct names as quickly as possible using standard sql? I'm currently using the following but this is - tSQL Maybe not as efficient as it could be. ``` SELECT x.FirstName FROM ( SELECT FirstName, rnk = RANK() OVER (ORDER BY Firstname) FROM WHData.dbo.tb_DimUserAccount A GROUP BY FirstName ) x WHERE rnk <=1000 ```