Use SQL to query in order except the first record

Question

I have an idea, e.g. I have a table containing name(Ann, Ben, Chris, Tom, John),
I want to query it using sql from letter a first, z last.

But I have a condition that I want to put John in the first record.

Answer 1

select name
from names
order by
  case when name = 'John' then 0 else 1 end,
  name

Answer 2

  (SELECT * FROM atable WHERE username = 'John')
UNION ALL
  (SELECT * FROM atable WHERE username <> 'John' ORDER BY username)

Or more general:

  (SELECT * FROM atable ORDER BY username DESC LIMIT 1)
UNION ALL
  (SELECT * FROM atable WHERE id NOT IN (
     SELECT id FROM atable ORDER BY username DESC LIMIT 1)
   ORDER BY username)

If you have to avoid the union for some reason, this slower code will also work:

SELECT * FROM atable 
ORDER BY  
  CASE WHEN id IN (SELECT id FROM atable ORDER BY username DESC LIMIT 1) 
  THEN 0 ELSE 1 END
  , username

In SQL-server the syntax is slightly different, the subquery is:

SELECT TOP 1 id FROM atable ORDER BY username DESC