Data validation - Stuck on letter matching

Hello all,

I have been working on an excel workbook that has combo boxes to do dropdowns for Name, product, issue, & solution (each having a dropdown). Only one sheet works just fine, but then my boss saw what I was using and said he wanted 500 rows of dropdowns and 12 sheets (for a year - tracking)... but putting that many combo boxes breaks excel (500x4 columns of combo boxes x 12 sheets). I was thinking of just doing a data validation in each cell in a column instead of using a combo box, but with the data validation have to scroll through the entire list. I have created my designations in Name Manager, but cant figure out the formula to use in the data validation so that the user would to be able to type in letters and get a match without having to scroll the entire list... Is there a way to do this? Please help.