Identifying cells with similar text

[jtmurr]

Hi,

I have a spreadsheet with 30,000+ rows and two columns. Both columns
contain one or more names. For example:

Column A Column B
John D. Doe John Doe Sally B. Johnson
Billy K. Bob
Sally B. Johnson John D. Doe Sally B. Johnson Billy K. Bob
John D. Doe Sally Johnson
Sam Jones Sam Collins

I need a way to determine if any of the names in column A match any of
the names in column B. In the example above, rows 1 and 2 would be
considered a match (even though John Doe's middle initial is missing in
column B of row 1). Row 4 would also be considered a match even though
Sam's last name is different. Basically, I need to now if column A and
column B contain any of the same text within a row. Is there anyway to
do this?

Thanks

 

[Guest]

is row 3 a match or not?

 

[jtmurr]

It looks like part of row 1 was pushed onto a second row in my original
post. Here's the example again.

Column A Column B
1 John D. Doe John Doe Sally B. Johnson
Billy K. Bob
2 Sally B. Johnson John D. Doe Sally B. Johnson Billy K. Bob
3 John D. Doe Sally Johnson
4 Sam Jones Sam Collins

Rows 1, 2, and 4 are matches. Row 3 is not.

Thanks for the help.