Excel to return list of items with specific repetition - excel

Question

I am trying to create a list of names that repeat a specific number of times, based on another variable. Basically, if I have the following:
Column A Column B
Amy 5
John 2
Carl 3
the result would be:
Amy
Amy
Amy
Amy
Amy
Carl
Carl
Carl
John
John
I have built the initial list using the Index-Small-Countif, method, to get an alphabetical and distinct list, and then another formula to determine how many times each item repeats. I know I need to use some sort of index/offset with reference to rows, but just can't quite get it to work out.
The list is dynamic and changes daily, so manually retyping the list each day would result in too much human error and time (list is about 50 distinct items, with total number of rows at the end being around 400). Ultimately, the list will be used for a number of sumproduct/vlookups.
I can do this fairly quickly in VBA, but the users of this document don't always trust VBA and trying to get them to Enable Macros each time is not something that is going to work.
Thank you very much for any help you can offer!

Answer 1

Based on your table:
+---+------+---+
| | A | B |
+---+------+---+
| 1 | Amy | 5 |
| 2 | John | 2 |
| 3 | Carl | 3 |
+---+------+---+
In column C stick a "0" at C4 and formula =B1+C2 copying down to just before the 0:
+---+------+---+----+
| | A | B | C |
+---+------+---+----+
| 1 | Amy | 5 | 10 |
| 2 | John | 2 | 5 |
| 3 | Carl | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | | | 0 |
+---+------+---+----+
Now we have an upper bound of the row that each value should be placed on which we can use in a Match() formula which will feed an Index() formula.
In a new column (I'm using E) IN E1: =INDEX($A$1:$A$3,MATCH(ROW(),$C$1:$C$3,-1),1) and copy down
+----+------+---+----+--+------+
| | A | B | C | D | E |
+----+------+---+----+--+------+
| 1 | Amy | 5 | 10 | | Carl |
| 2 | John | 2 | 5 | | Carl |
| 3 | Carl | 3 | 3 | | Carl |
| 4 | | | 0 | | John |
| 5 | | | | | John |
| 6 | | | | | Amy |
| 7 | | | | | Amy |
| 8 | | | | | Amy |
| 9 | | | | | Amy |
| 10 | | | | | Amy |
+----+------+---+----+--+------+
The list is backwards because of that oddball backwards from 0 thing we did in Column C. This is to make that Match() last parameter of -1 (Greater than) work correctly.
I would imagine with some tweaking this could be done a little cleaner, but this should get you in the ballpark.
Although I would still be a big proponent of finding users who are capable of enabling macros. Ugh.