Extract Email + Name from Any CSV
Published 2026-08-02
Every CRM, email tool, and marketing platform wants the same three columns: email, first name, last name. But the CSV you exported from your event platform, survey tool, or old CRM has those fields under different names, sometimes merged into a single "full_name" column, sometimes split across "given_name" and "surname", sometimes scattered among 40 other columns you do not need.
Getting from "messy export" to "clean 3-column import file" is the tax you pay every time you move contacts between tools.
The name problem
Names in CSV exports come in many shapes:
- Separate first_name and last_name columns (easy — just rename and keep)
- A single "name" or "full_name" column (needs splitting on the first space)
- Separate "given_name" and "family_name" columns (just aliases, but tools don't agree on naming)
- A "display_name" column with inconsistent formatting ("Anderson, Alice" vs "Alice Anderson")
- No name columns at all (you still want the emails, just with empty name fields)
What the tool does
Drop your CSV. The converter auto-detects which columns hold email addresses, first names, last names, and full names by matching against common header aliases (email, mail, email_address, first_name, given_name, fname, last_name, surname, family_name, name, full_name, contact_name, display_name).
If it finds separate first and last name columns, it uses those directly. If it finds a full name column instead, it splits on the first space — "Carol de la Cruz" becomes first_name: "Carol", last_name: "de la Cruz". If it finds no name columns at all, it outputs the emails with empty name fields.
Emails are lowercased, format-validated, and deduplicated. The output is always the same clean 3-column CSV: email, first_name, last_name.
Example: event attendee list cleanup
You exported 500 attendees from Eventbrite. The CSV has columns: Order #, First Name, Last Name, Email, Ticket Type, Order Date. You need just the contacts for a follow-up campaign in Mailchimp.
Input: Order #, First Name, Last Name, Email, Ticket Type, Order Date
Output: email, first_name, last_name
[email protected], Alice, Anderson
[email protected], Bob, BakerWhere to import the output
The email + first_name + last_name format is the universal contact import shape. It works directly with:
- Mailchimp — Audience > Import contacts > CSV
- HubSpot — Contacts > Import > File from computer
- Salesforce — Data Import Wizard > Leads or Contacts
- Brevo (formerly Sendinblue) — Contacts > Import contacts
- ActiveCampaign — Contacts > Import
- Google Contacts — Import CSV
- Any tool that accepts a CSV with email + name columns