Sumifs and countifs

Can you use a cell reference with the SUMIFS and COUNTIFS formulas and Defined Names?

To clarify, I'm wondering if you can do this the following.

Create a Defined Name of SalesRegion (Northeast, Southeast...etc.) & Sales (SalesNumber1....SalesNumbern).

I know you can =SUMIFS(Sales, SalesRegion, "="&"Southeast")

If you had the words "SalesRegion", "Sales" in cells A1 and A2, respectively, could I do this? (I know you can put "Southeast" in a cell A3 and it works.)

=SUMIFS(A2,A1,"="&A3)

If I can do this, what am I doing wrong to not achieve the correct result?