Counting the number of times an entry appears

Referring to the attachment, I would like to count the number of times a person appears in the 3 columns for year 2007; likewise for 2008, and 2009.
Should I use Countif, or CountA, or is there some formula I can use?

What if I'd like to "automate" the entire process in a way such that the formula will automatically sieve through all the names in the 3 columns, list them down, and then show the number of times the name appears in the respective years in a adjacent column? Do I then need to use VBA?