Learn English – Usage of “please” at the beginning of a sentence

Please give me all the names starting with A.

Starting with A includes only words that start with the letter A.

• Adam
• Alfred

Please give me all the names starting from A.

Starting from A gives you all the words that start with A and all the words that start with the letters after A.

• Adam
• Chris
• John

Your wording makes the difference less clear. For example I think the following is clearer.

Please give me all the names starting with the letter C.

Please give me all the names starting from the letter C.

When there is no known ordering, they mean the same thing so with/from can be used interchangeably in the following example.

Let's start cutting back on our expenses, starting with/from the money we spend on food.

So I'm of the opinion they can be used interchangeably if there is no order to what is being started with/from, though with is more correct in my opinion. When order matters, starting from includes all items starting with and coming after.

The second example is not rude in the slightest. It is a like saying "would you be so kind as to...." and is in fact a polite way to ask somebody to do something, implying that there is no requirement for them to do it but that it would be kind if they would do it anyway.

The first example is not technically correct in English, unless you mean to imply that it is kind of you to ask the person to do something, but it is very commonly used and is understood as a gentle way of asking someone to do something, very similar to the second example.