Select 1000 distinct names from 100 million records via standard sql

Question

I have a table tb_FirstName with one field FirstName. The table has 100 million non null records with lots of repetitions e.g. John occurs 2 million times. The distinct count of FirstName is over 2 million.

How do I select 1000 distinct names as quickly as possible using standard sql?

I'm currently using the following but this is

• tSQL

• Maybe not as efficient as it could be.

  SELECT x.FirstName
  FROM (
      SELECT  FirstName,
              rnk = RANK() OVER (ORDER BY Firstname)
      FROM    WHData.dbo.tb_DimUserAccount A
      GROUP BY FirstName
      ) x
  WHERE rnk <=1000
  

Answer 1

Seems like you could use TOP 1000 with DISTINCT:

SELECT DISINCT TOP 1000 FirstName
FROM WHData.dbo.tb_DimUserAccount
ORDER BY FirstName

Condensed SQL Fiddle Demo