 <p>Personally I would store them separately as you can handle the data a lot easier. Also, what if the person has a space in their name or accidentally puts it and you want just a first or second name, how ill you determine first or second names if that happens?</p> <p>EDIT:</p> <p>Also, if you want to store more detailed names, I would make a whole range of columns for Prefix, First, Middle, Last and anything you can think of.</p>