Instead of the case statement you can also do this:
SELECT ISNULL(thing1.name,(ISNULL(thing2.name,thing3.name))) AS name
"I cant stress enough the importance of switching from a sequential files mindset to set-based thinking. After you make the switch, you can spend your time tuning and optimizing your queries instead of maintaining lengthy, poor-performing code."-- Itzik Ben-Gan 2001