You can use the COUNTIF(range, criteria) function to count how often specific text occurs in an Excel column.
The following examples show how to use this function in practice.
Example 1: Count Frequency of One Specific Text
Suppose we have the following column in Excel that shows various NBA team names:
If we’d like to count how often the team name “Hornets” appears in the column, we can use the following formula:
=COUNTIF(A2:A21, "Hornets")
The following screenshot shows how to use this formula in practice:
We can see that “Hornets” appears 3 times.
Example 2: Count Frequency of Multiple Text
If we’d like to count the frequency of multiple different text, we can use the UNIQUE() function to get an array of every unique text that appears in a column:
We can then use the COUNTIF() function to count how frequently each team name occurs:
We can see that:
- The team name “Mavericks” occurs 3 times.
- The team name “Spurs” occurs 2 times.
- The team name “Lakers” occurs 3 times.
And so on.
Additional Resources
The following tutorials offer additional information on how to count frequencies in Excel:
How to Create a Frequency Distribution in Excel
How to Calculate Relative Frequency in Excel
How to Calculate Cumulative Frequency in Excel