You can programmatically get to all the elements in an excel sheet.
sheet = Import["test.xlsx", "Rules"];
This gives rules for everything (data, sheets, number of sheets, etc)
You can programmatically assign the sheet names by converting them to symbols (from strings) and assigning the data:
MapThread[
Set[Evaluate[Symbol[#1]], #2] &, {"Sheets" /. sheet,
"Data" /. sheet}]
Add Flatten if you just want a plain list and not respect the rows and columns
MapThread[
Set[Evaluate[Symbol[#1]], Flatten[#2]] &, {"Sheets" /. sheet,
"Data" /. sheet}]
Regards,
Neil