Table of Contents
In Google Sheets, you can use the QUERY function to reference specific column names in your data instead of manually selecting them. This makes it easier to quickly filter data and generate dynamic results. To use column names in a query, you must enclose them in single quotes and separate them with a comma. You can then combine them with other parameters in the WHERE clause to filter the data and generate meaningful results.
You can use the following basic syntax to use a column name in a Google Sheets query:
=QUERY(A1:C11,"SELECT "&SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(1,MATCH("Team",A1:C1,0),4),1,""))
This particular query will select the column with the name “Team” in the cell range A1:C11.
The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.
Example: Use Column Name in Google Sheets Query
Suppose we have the following dataset that contains information about various basketball players:
If we would like to select the “Team” column in an ordinary query, we would reference the column as A since it’s the first column in the range we’re interested in:
=QUERY(A1:C11, "SELECT A")
This would return just column A:
However, if we attempt to use “Team” as the column name then we’ll receive an error:
=QUERY(A1:C11, "SELECT Team")
Instead, we must use the following formula to select the “Team” column by name:
=QUERY(A1:C11,"SELECT "&SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(1,MATCH("Team",A1:C1,0),4),1,""))
This will return the “Team” column from the original dataset:
Note that you can use multiple SUBSTITUTE functions if you’d like to select multiple columns by name.
For example, you can use the following syntax to select both the “Team” and “Position” columns by name:
=QUERY(A1:C11,"SELECT "&SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(1,MATCH("Team",A1:C1,0),4),1,"")&","&SUBSTITUTE(ADDRESS(1,MATCH("Position",A1:C1,0),4),1,""))
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
Notice that the query returns both the “Team” and the “Position” columns.
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common operations in Google Sheets: