SELECT DISTINCT() issue

[sevenfive]

i have a table with a similar structure to this:

name surname flag

bob jones red
jill jones blue
fred smith yellow
jake johnson purple
terry wogan green

what i want to achieve is to pull the DISTINCT surnames and display the data held in 'flag' that relates to those distinct results.

eg - i want to print "jones - red" etc...

i have tried this - SELECT DISTINCT(surname), flag WHERE...

but this pulls everything and isnt distinct.

any ideas guys?

[Lars_Berg]

How do you decide which value to choose when there are multiple flag values for a surname, i.e. why red and not blue for jones?

[sevenfive]

my example didnt make much sense! the live data is much more obvious, i have resolved the problem using GROUP BY instead.