Can I assign an abbreviation to a selected item in a drop down list?

Hi I am writing a quote request form, in Excel 2000,with several drop down lists. My proble is that I have a list in which the item names are pretty long and I would like for the customer to select from the list of names and have its abbreviation show as the selection made. For example a customer could choose Surface Verticle Exit Rod from the drop down list and this would show SED after the selection was clicked. I am pretty sure this can be done, I just don’t know how. I am able to do it so that it goes to another cell but I really would like it to be confined to my drop down list. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks Doris