Hello Airtable community!

I’ve created a table to keep track of a list of background extras on a film. The way the columns are currently set up is as follows:

pCharacter Number] ]First Name] ]Last Name] ]Character] ]Scene] ]Shoot Day] and so on.

Each person is given a character number, and right now I have that column’s field as Auto-number. We already have records input for all characters that will be in the film, and just need to fill in names. The problem is that some people will have multiple characters assigned to them and we don’t know which people or which characters yet. If possible, I’d like to find a formula to assign a subletter to a record’s eCharacter Number] when a rFirst Name] and NLast Name] are input into a record that match an already existing one.

For example:

This is how the list would look before a new person is input

001-----MIKE--------WALLACE-----REPORTER


002-----SONYA-----PARKS---------PROTESTOR


003-----ADAM-------PHILLIPS-----PROTESTOR


004---------------------------------------JANITOR


005---------------------------------------JANITOR

And if we input one of the same people into a new character it would become this

001-----MIKE--------WALLACE-----REPORTER


002-----SONYA-----PARKS---------PROTESTOR


003-----ADAM-------PHILLIPS-----PROTESTOR


002B—SONYA-----PARKS--------JANITOR


004-------------------------------------JANITOR

Notice that after the new name is input, what used to be 004 changed to 002B and what used to be 005 changed to 004.

This will save us a lot of time and effort if we don’t have to manually index the hundreds of people we have coming, so any help at all is greatly appreciated.

Thank you!