mysql group and count two columns

Question

I have no idea ho to group and count names in two columns in one table. Structure of my table is something like:

+------+-------------------+
| user | friend1 | friend2 |
+------+---------+---------+
|user1 | Adam    | Filip   | 
|user2 | Boris   | Norbert |
|user3 | Filip   | Carol   |
|user4 | Carol   | Filip   |
|user5 | Boris   | Patricia|
+------+---------+---------+

And I would like to get results as:

+----------+---+
| Filip    | 3 |
| Boris    | 2 |
| Carol    | 2 |
| Adam     | 1 |
| Norbert  | 1 |
| Patricia | 1 |
+----------+---+

It's ordered by count.

I tried something like this:

SELECT friend1 AS friends, friend2 AS friends, COUNT(friends) AS friedscount FROM table GROUP BY friends ORDER BY friedscount DESC

Answer 1

combine the rows first using UNION ALL to preserve duplicates inside a subquery then count

SELECT  friend, COUNT(*) friedscount 
FROM
        (
            SELECT  friend1 AS friend FROM TableName UNION ALL
            SELECT  friend2 AS friend FROM TableName
        ) a
GROUP   BY  friend
ORDER BY friedscount DESC

Here's a Demo