number representing text string - forms

Question

A web form collects data on students in a band organization at school. The form data is fed into a google sheet that then populates a merge template and the merged forms are emailed to the recipient. A parent needs to print, sign and turn in the forms. There are hundreds of kids in this band and at registration time when the forms are turned in it is easier to sort all the papers in the stack if you have a short sort number in the corner... Volunteer kids don't apply alphabetization well. I'm trying to create a formula that will give me that sorting number to merge onto the header of each page of the PDF they receive after submitting the form. I want it based on last name and then first name and be able to create that number (in the google sheet) on the fly because the merging happens almost instantly when the user submits the form. Hence, an excel type formula is desired that will result in a number representing the kids name. I'd like for each number to be unique but some names are the same for the first few letters, also some names are only 2 characters long. I tried making A=10, B=11, z=35 etc. (so all are 2 digits) So, using only the first 3 characters, Bob Jones would = 192423112411 - hardly easy to sort the paper at a glance and it doesn't really differentiate between Bob Janes either. 4 digits is preferable. I also looked at =code() formula and it came out with long numbers too. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
Side note: What method do spreadsheets use to sort text? Do they weight the characters or what? Before I got the automerge thing to work I assigned each kid in the list a number higher than the one below and lower than above (on the sheet), then did the merge.

Answer 1

One option is to:
sort the name list alphabetically
add a sort number column, and put a =TEXT(row(),"0000") formula to generate a unique ID
on the merge spreadsheet, use a VLOOKUP function to retrieve the unique ID for that specific name.

Answer 2

First off, that wall of text was kind of hard to read through. Please try and do a little formatting so the people trying to help you can easily follow what you're trying to convey.
Personally I would suggest a hyphenated system. First initial of last name converted to a number, followed by a hyphen, followed by the first two letters of their first name converted to numbers.
Bob Jones becomes 11-1956 assuming you differentiate between upper and lower case, or 11-1924 if you convert everything to upper case, which I guess makes more sense.
You could use this VBA function to convert names to a system like that:
Function ConvertToIndex(strInput As String) As String
Dim strLast As String
Dim arrName() As String
Dim strFirst1 As String
Dim strFirst2 As String
arrName = Split(strInput, " ")
strLast = Mid(arrName(1), 1, 1)
strFirst1 = Mid(arrName(0), 1, 1)
strFirst2 = Mid(arrName(0), 2, 1)
ConvertToIndex = Asc(UCase(strLast)) - 55 & "-" & Asc(UCase(strFirst1)) - 55 & Asc(UCase(strFirst2)) - 55
'MsgBox ConvertToIndex
End Function

Answer 3

Thank you Tim, Nutsch and Mad Tech for your responses. I appreciate your input. Sorry the paragraph was so long, I get wordy. Because the members get their merged PDF sheet immediately after submitting I need the number to be based on the name as soon as it's entered, not after the fact; so I was looking for a formula that would reside in the sheet. Interesting VBA function too though. I'll settle for numbering them afterwards, maybe when the sheets are turned in. By then I'll know all who are in the band and can assign numbers like before. Thanks again!