Excel - Formula or VBA to allow matching of partial names, abbreviated names and nicknames

I work in an environment were information is collected from students and manually entered into spreadsheets by a large number of different people (sometimes the students themselves).  The names of the students on the supplied spreadsheets can have 4 or 5 variations due to the use of nicknames, abbreviations, spelling errors and the like.  I would like to create a system where the supplied name can be matched to the correct and formal name of the student.  I have created a table with 5 name columns for each student.  In this table the formal name of the athlete is entered in column 2 (column 1 is an ID number) and any known abbreviations, nicknames or abbreviations are entered in columns C,D,E and F.  If the supplied name matches any of the known alternate names then a successful match can be made and the correct Formal Name and ID number applied to the data record.  I have written a match function to accomplish this but i am interested in any alternative suggestions to make this task work smoothly and cope with any new alternate names that may be entered i.e. add them to the list of alternate names.  A VBA solution is OK as the master document is already a xlsm file.  Sample file is attached.
Names-Database.xlsx