Two options in select list menu

Question

Let's say I have a select (list/menu) and I've added a dynamic source to it.
The menu will show a list of names.  However, in the database the names are stored in two tables:
first_name
last_name
I don't want the list to just show last names because what if more than one person has a last name, how would you know who is who?
So, I've tried to get it to show the first and last name.   Here is the code with just a last name showing:
<label for="employees"></label>
            <select name="employees" id="employees">
              <?php
do { 
?>
              <option value="<?php echo $row_getEmployee['employee_id']?>"><?php echo $row_getEmployee['lastname']?></option>
              <?php
} while ($row_getEmployee = mysql_fetch_assoc($getEmployee));
  $rows = mysql_num_rows($getEmployee);
  if($rows > 0) {
      mysql_data_seek($getEmployee, 0);
            $row_getEmployee = mysql_fetch_assoc($getEmployee);
?>
          </select>
The important part being:
I tried changing this:
<option value="<?php echo $row_getEmployee['employee_id']?>"><?php echo $row_getEmployee['lastname']?></option>
to this:
<option value="<?php echo $row_getEmployee['employee_id']?>"><?php echo $row_getEmployee['firstname' . 'lastname']?></option>
but that only showed the first letter of each last name and nothing else. 
So - does anyone know how I could do this?

Answer 1

Ok, first my standard disclaimer - I do not know PHP. But it seems to me that you can't include both column names in one call to the recordset. Try this instead:
<option value="<?php echo $row_getEmployee['employee_id']?>"><?php echo $row_getEmployee['firstname']." ".$row_getEmployee['lastname']?></option>
However, I would probably do my concantenation in the SQL select instead.