Conditional formatting based on another cell's text

Question

I have a Google Sheets table of names and statistics that go along with said names. I'm trying to use a dropdown menu on a specific cell so that when I select a specific name from the dropdown, all of the cells that start with the same name will be highlighted.

Answer 1

custom formula: =IF(I1=H$4, 1)

Answer 2

Assuming the dropdown is in B2. Please select entire sheet and: Format > Conditional formatting..., Format cells if... Custom formula is and:

=regexmatch(A1,"^"&$B$2)

with highlighting of your choice and Done.

Since for all of the cells that start with the same name this could be slow.