SQL: Top N rows for each X

I want to retrive data from a table say TABLE1(ID,NAME).

Table has following data:

ID NAME
1 A
1 B
1 C
1 H
2 R
2 T
2 U
2 P
2 J
3 L
3 J
4 G
5 W
5 Q
5 S


I want to select TOP N (say N=3) rows for each ID (1,2,3,4,5),
i.e. output would be like

ID NAME
1 A
1 B
1 C
2 R
2 T
2 U
3 L
3 J
4 G
5 W
5 Q
5 S


SQL query should not be specific to oracle or SQL Server or other DB, but a general one...

Thnx.

fun2oos

SELECT * FROM TABLE1 t1
WHERE [NAME] IN
(
SELECT TOP 3 [NAME] FROM TABLE1 t2
WHERE t1.[ID] = t2.[ID]
order by [ID] DESC
)
order by t1.[ID]


urs solution is welcome