bp,
if there's a logical sequence to your multiple named ranges, this shouldn't be a problem......
I set up some called :
yr2000
yr2001
yr2002
yr2003
etc
this allowed me to VLOOKUP on a cell (say containing the word "Sammi" then in the range array I was able to interrogate the date that was sitting on "Sammi"s row
(say 13 May 2002)
as follows :
=YEAR(A1)
which brought back "2002"
since that corrosponds with the logic of my named ranges, I popped it into an indirect as part of the range array as follows :
=VLOOKUP(A1,INDIRECT("yr"&YEAR(B1)),1,0)
where A1 held "Sammi"
where B1 held "13/05/2002"
and the named range of year 2002 was "yr2002"