Tough. As a systematic approach to narrow it down, you could concat cols A
and B for both Sheet1/2 in col C, using in C1, copied down: =TRIM(A1&"
"&B1). Then try to match based on this concat col C in both sheets, one
against the other, viz.:

In Sheet1,
In D1, copied down:
=IF(C1="","",IF(ISNUMBER(MATCH(TRUE,INDEX(ISNUMBER (SEARCH(C1,Sheet2!C$1:C$100)),),0)),"Y",""))

In Sheet2,
In D1, copied down:
=IF(C1="","",IF(ISNUMBER(MATCH(TRUE,INDEX(ISNUMBER (SEARCH(C1,Sheet1!C$1:C$100)),),0)),"Y",""))

You could also try these 2 links for more info on fuzzy text match:
http://www.dicks-blog.com/archives/2...zy-text-match/
http://j-walk.com/ss/excel/tips/tip77.htm

--
Max
Singapore
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---
"Christie" wrote in message
...
Some sample posts would be:

Sheet one - Surname: Smith (A1), Christian name: Michael John
Sheet two - Surname: Smith (A1), Christian name: Michael

I would need the above to match even though sheet two does not have the
middle name.

I also have a sheet that has both surname and christian name in the one
cell, eg Smith Michael John (A1) and I need this to match the above
sheets.

Hope this makes it easier to understand

Christie