You can do a partial match using wildcards.
The asterisk represents the same thing that it did in the good 'ol days of DOS. Similarly, both DOS and Excel will treat the question mark (?) as a wildcard that represents exactly one character.
In A1:A10, put a list of names (make one of those names Michael).
In cell C1 put =VLOOKUP(B1,A1:A10,1,FALSE), where B1 is the lookup value.
To lookup Michael, in B1 put "Mi*" (without the apostrophes).
An alternative formula is:
=INDEX(A1:A10,MATCH(B1,A1:A10,0))
Regards,
Mike