Use Min operator with condition and selector
using System; using System.Linq; using System.Collections; using System.Collections.Generic; class Program//from ww w . j av a 2s . com { static void Main(string[] args) { string firstAlphabetically = Actor.GetActors().Min(a => a.lastName); Console.WriteLine(firstAlphabetically); } } public class Actor { public int birthYear; public string firstName; public string lastName; public static Actor[] GetActors() { Actor[] actors = new Actor[] { new Actor { birthYear = 1964, firstName = "Kotlin", lastName = "Ruby" }, new Actor { birthYear = 1968, firstName = "Owen", lastName = "Windows" }, new Actor { birthYear = 1960, firstName = "Javascript", lastName = "Spader" }, new Actor { birthYear = 1964, firstName = "Scala", lastName = "Java" }, }; return (actors); } }