Formula needed to return the name corresponding to the three highest values in column

Greetings,

Thanks in advance for all replies.

I can achieve my desired result using VBA, but I'd rather have a formula.

My data looks something like this:


..........1970..1971..1972
Adam.........6.....4.....1
Bob..........8.....6.....4
Carol........3.....9.....8
Dave.........9.....8.....9
Edward.......1.....1.....2
Frank........5.....2.....7
George.......4.....7.....5

At the end of each column, I'd like a formula to return the top three highest scoring names.

So for the column labeled 1970, the result would be:

Dave
Bob
Adam

(Dave has 9, Bob as 8, and Adam has 6 in this column, the three highest scoring names.)

The result for the 1971 column would be:

Carol
Dave
George

(The actual data contains tens of thousands of names, and hundreds of different columns.)

That works. Excellent. Thank you.