Display 2 columns for each header - sql

Question

In SQL Server 2008 I have a table People (Id, Gender, Name).
Gender is either Male or Female. There can be many people with the same name.
I would like to write a query that displays for each gender the top 2 names
by count and their count, like this:
Male Female
Adam 23 Rose 34
Max 20 Jenny 15
I think that PIVOT might be used but all the examples I have seen display only one column for each header.

Answer 1

Here is an example on SQL Fiddle -- http://sqlfiddle.com/#!3/b3477/1
This uses an couple of common table expressions to separate the genders.
create table People
(
Id int,
Gender varchar(50),
Name varchar(50)
)
;
insert into People values (1, 'Male', 'Bob');
insert into People values (2, 'Male', 'Bob');
insert into People values (3, 'Male', 'Bill');
insert into People values (4, 'Male', 'Chuck');
insert into People values (5, 'Female', 'Anne');
insert into People values (6, 'Female', 'Anne');
insert into People values (7, 'Female', 'Bobbi');
insert into People values (8, 'Female', 'Jane');
with cteMale as
(
select Name as 'MaleName', Count(*) as Num, ROW_NUMBER() over(order by count(*) desc, Name) RowNum
from People
where Gender = 'Male'
group by Name
)
,
cteFemale as
(
select top 2 Name as 'FemaleName', Count(*) as Num, ROW_NUMBER() over(order by count(*) desc, Name) RowNum
from People
where Gender = 'Female'
group by Name
)
select a.MaleName, a.Num as MaleNum, b.femaleName, b.Num as FemaleNum
from cteMale a
join cteFemale b on
a.RowNum = b.RowNum
where a.RowNum <= 2

Answer 2

Use a windowing function. Below is a complete solution using a temporary table #people.
-- use temp db
use tempdb;
go
-- drop test table
--drop table #people;
--go
-- create test table
create table #people (my_id int, my_gender char(1), my_name varchar(25));
go
-- clear test table
delete from #people;
-- three count
insert into #people values
(23, 'M', 'Adam'),
(34, 'F', 'Rose');
go 3
-- two count
insert into #people values
(20, 'M', 'Max'),
(15, 'F', 'Jenny');
go 2
-- one count
insert into #people values
(20, 'M', 'John'),
(15, 'F', 'Julie');
go
-- grab top two by gender
;
with cte_Get_Top_Two as
(
select ROW_NUMBER() OVER(PARTITION BY my_gender ORDER BY count() DESC) AS my_window,
my_gender, my_name, count() as total
from #people
group by my_gender, my_name
)
select * from cte_Get_Top_Two where my_window in (1, 2)
go
Here is the output.
PS: You can drop my_id from the table since it does not relate to your problem but does not change solution.