If you are using the TOP syntax of T-SQL, then unless you include an order by statement, the rows are returned arbitrarily (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189463.aspx). If you are including an order by, that suggests you want the one record returned that is the min (or max) of date column. If this is representative of the data (tabA): NameVal NameDate OtherVar1 OtherVar2 name1 8/27/10 A F name1 9/15/10 B G name2 8/22/10 C H name2 8/22/10 C1 H1 name2 10/22/10 D I   proc sql; select a.nameval, a.namedate, a.othervar1, a.othervar2 from tabA as A where a.NameDate = (select min(NameDate) from TabA where nameval = a.nameval); quit; This would return NameVal NameDate OtherVar1 OtherVar2 name1 8/27/10 A F name2 8/22/10 C H name2 8/22/10 C1 H1 Note that this treats ties exactly like the top 1 statement would. If that isn't what you're trying to do, then perhaps some clarification would help. ... View more