Query: Count Alphabetical wise name

Question

I have one voter table which contain large amount of data. Like

Voter_id  name      age  
1         san       24  
2         dnyani    20  
3         pavan     23   
4         ddanial   19  
5         sam       20   
6         pickso    38   

I need to show all voter_name by Alphabetically and count them.Like

 name        
 san  
 sam  
 s...
 s...     
 dnyani  
 ddanial
 d...    
 pavan             
 pickso
 p..
 p..     

I try using count(voter_name) or GROUP BY.
But both not working for me..... Suppose table contain 50 voters details.
number of person name start with A=15,b=2, c=10,y=3 and so on.
Then how to count and show first 15 record of 'A' person, next 2 record of 'B' person and so on..
Give me any reference or hint..
Thanks in Advance.

Answer 1

It is as simple as this,

SELECT SUBSTRING(name,1,1) as ALPHABET, COUNT(name) as COUNT 
FROM voter GROUP BY SUBSTRING(name,1,1);