Get N per group MYSQL - mysql

Question

IT IS NOT THE SAME QUESTION AS : Using LIMIT within GROUP BY to get N results per group?
but i admit it is similar.
I need to select the first 2 rows per person.
the rows are ordered by Year received
Problem : there is a possibility than 2 data were entered the same month (Date is entered YYYY-MM)
The query I came with (following the referred question) is stuck in an BIG loop.
SELECT *
FROM `table_data` as b
WHERE (
SELECT count(*) FROM `table_data` as a
WHERE a.Nom = b.Nom and a.year < b.year
) <= 2;
Sample Data :
A | year | Nom
---------------------
b | 2011-01 | Tim
---------------------
d | 2011-01 | Tim
---------------------
s | 2011-01 | Tim
---------------------
a | 2011-03 | Luc
---------------------
g | 2011-01 | Luc
---------------------
s | 2011-01 | Luc
Should export :
A | year | Nom
---------------------
b | 2011-01 | Tim
---------------------
d | 2011-01 | Tim
---------------------
a | 2011-03 | Luc
---------------------
g | 2011-01 | Luc

Answer 1

(
-- First get a set of results as if you only wanted the latest entry for each
-- name - a simple GROUP BY from a derived table with an ORDER BY
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT *
FROM `table_data`
ORDER BY `year` DESC
) `a`
GROUP BY `Nom`
)
UNION
(
-- Next union it with the set of result you get if you apply the same criteria
-- and additionally specify that you do not want any of the rows found by the
-- first operation
SELECT *
FROM (
SELECT *
FROM `table_data`
WHERE `id` NOT IN (
SELECT `id`
FROM (
SELECT *
FROM `table_data`
ORDER BY `year` DESC
) `a`
GROUP BY `Nom`
)
ORDER BY `year` DESC
) `b`
GROUP BY `Nom`
)
-- Optionally apply ordering to the final results
ORDER BY `Nom` DESC, `year` DESC
I feel sure there is a shorter way of doing it but right now I can't for the life of me work out what it is. That does work, though - assuming you have a primary key (which you should) and that it is called id.